Imran Khan can face trial under Article 6: Marriyum

Islamabad: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb on Thursday said Imran Khan could face treason charges for subverting the Constitution to prevent his ouster from the power through the vote on no-confidence motion.

“Imran Khan has been saying that he was asking the neutrals to intervene. This is the case of Article 6 for violating the Constitution,” she said while addressing a news conference here.

She said the people was asking Imran Khan as to why he did not dissolve the national and provincial assemblies and initiate an inquiry by setting up a commission on the so-called foreign conspiracy if he received the cipher on March 8.

The minister said if he knew on March 8 that an international conspiracy had been hatched against his government, he should have formed the commission at once. Imran Khan did not hold inquiry into the matter as he knew that it was a “blatant lie” which he started propagating after foreseeing his imminent defeat in the no-confidence motion tabled by the then opposition in the National Assembly.

As regards the PTI’s chief announcement for challenging the Lahore High Court decision on the Punjab Chief Minister’s election, Marriyum said Imran Khan had ceded high moral ground for filing an appeal before the apex court which had already decided against his constitutional transgression with 5-0.

According to that decision of apex court, she said Imran Khan did violate the Constitution by influencing the NA Speaker, Governor Punjab and other representatives of the government, while the ruling of the then deputy speaker was declared unconstitutional.

It was Imran who also did contempt of the apex court by inciting his workers to violate the orders and reach the D-chowk during the long march of May 25, she added.

She regretted that the media misreported the LHC decision on the election of CM Punjab. “This is not a good tradition as it is tantamount to disinformation and the public was misled through misreporting on the matter.”

“The media has to take the responsibility,” she said, adding CM Punjab Hamza Shehbaz had not been removed from the office, nor was his election declared null and void, and also Usman Buzdar was not restored as CM Punjab.

According to the Article 130, Section 4, she said it was continuation of the previous election under which the CM had to get elected by securing majority vote in the assembly. “Hamza Shehbaz Sahib is CM Punjab until the re-voting , which is scheduled for tomorrow (Friday) 4pm.

All the decisions, which would be taken by Hamza Shehbaz as CM Punjab till 4pm, were protected by the law and constitution, she maintained.

Taking a dig at the PTI leaders for distributing sweets and dancing on drum beats soon after the announcement of the decision by the LHC, she said they took u-turn and announced to challenge it in the apex court.

The minister said Imran Khan had a problem of not accepting his defeat as it was on record as to how he attacked the institutions after his ouster from the office of prime minister.

Imran Khan said that he should not be kicked out of the Prime Minister’s office as he was not to blame for the inflation. He did not only cause inflation, but robbed every department to make money, she observed.

“Vested interests are those when the prime minister distributes diamonds, purchases lands and takes commission on every transfer and posting of civil servants through his front person Farah Gogi,” she said while lashing out at Imran Khan for saying that the PML-N came into the power to achieve personal gains.

Vested interests were fulfilled by Imran Khan by running the Bani Gala like “Money Gala” and patronizing the mafias and cartels, the minister added.

She said Imran Khan, who imposed on the country as prime minister for four years, could not prove a single accusation against PM Shehbaz Sharif and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif despite enjoying all the executive powers and setting up the asset recovering unit in the PM Office.

He had no right to compare himself with Nawaz Sharif who became PM thrice with the power of people vote and gave them motorway, abundant electricity, gas and economic growth.

She said ironically Imran Khan, who mourned his incompetency and failures today, accused others of misuse of authority, money laundering and corruption and regarded them thief. He sent his opponents and media persons to the death cells by influencing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and, even the anti-narcotics department, she added.

Before raising finger over the NAB law tweaks, Imran Khan, who came into the power after alleged failure of Result Transmission System (RTS), should better read the decisions of the courts in the cases which he filed against his political opponents fraudulently.

Be it was the decision in the case of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif or Hamza Shehbaz or Maryam Nawaz or Saad Rafique or Rana Sanaullah, or others, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government did not challenge a single case in the apex court.

All the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders were exonerated and given bail by the courts in these cases after no corruption, kickbacks, and embezzlement were found, she said, adding “It is written in the case of Khwaja Saad Rafique that the NAB was used for political engineering. So, it is my duty to inform the public about correct news and incompetency of Imran Khan.”

She said Imran Khan, while being into the power, violated the human rights and did political victimization just to satisfy his ego. They sent fabricated record to the National Crime Agency UK accusing Shehbaz Sharif of money laundering, but faced sheer embarrassment when nothing was found.

In the PTI government’s tenure, she said the NAB failed to produce a single evidence before the court to prove corruption against the PML-N leaders, while the party’s counsel Naeem Bukhari, himself, withdrew appeal against the bail of PM Shehbaz Sharif.

She said withdrawal of appeal was tantamount to the admission that the decision to give Shehbaz Sharif was right.

The minister said it did not end here as Shehzad Akbar, who was actually heading Imran Khan’s asset making unit in the PM office, planted a fake story against PM Shehbaz Sharif through a foreign journalist David Rose. All the details of political witch-hunting were part of the official record.