Nawaz Sharif may face contempt of court - Early Times Newspaper Jammu Kashmir

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Nawaz Sharif may face contempt of court

10/26/2015 9:30:13 PM

Instead of motivating Prime Minister,Nawaz Sharif, for ending export of terror to India for early resumption of the stalled bilateral dialogue two citizens of Pakistan have filed petitions in the Court requesting the judicial body to try Nawaz Sharif for contempt case on charge of having flouted September 8 order directing all top leaders of Pakistan to speak in international fora in Urdu only and not in English. Hence Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif faces a contempt case for failing to make his speech in Urdu at the UN General Assembly in violation of a verdict by the country's Supreme Court. The petitioner in the case Zahid Ghani contends that Sharif flouted the September 8 Supreme Court verdict which directed the federal and provincial Governments to use, without any delay, Urdu for official and other purposes. Zahid has contended,in his petition, that when heads of other major countries have been delivering their address in the language that is used in their country why did not Nawaz Sharif honour the Supreme Court verdict by speaking to the UN General Assembly in Urdu? In this context Zahid has cited the instance of heads of other states, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Cuban President Raul Castro, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko who had addressed the same UN meeting in their national languages. The petitioner has contended that Prime Minister Sharif, had committed an offence and, therefore, should be prosecuted under Article 204 of the Constitution read with Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003. This is the second such petition after another person had moved a similar petition requesting the Supreme Court to hold the prime minister in contempt for flouting, with impunity, its September 8 judgement. The court in September 8 ordered the Government to take steps for implementation of Article 251 of the Constitution to make Urdu the official language. The court also said that leaders and officials should use Urdu instead of English in speeches and formal communications. Was it Nawaz Sharif's plan to convey the crux of his speech to the non-Asian heads of the states and other top officials of the UN? If it was his plan he may be wrong because each speech is translated in many languages in order to enable the member countries to understand what the heads of other countries had stated? Possibly Nawaz Sharif had no time to get the prepared speech, written in English, translated into Urdu which could have helped him in honouring the Court verdict. Nawaz Sharif is not as strong an orator as Narendra Modi or Sushama Swaraj are. Modi and Sushama. can deliver their speeches extempore. Even former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was a good orator despite his habit of making long pauses. It would have been better for the two petitioners had they filed petitions in the court demanding necessary legal proceedings against Nawaz Sharif for having blamed, without any substance, India for trying to delay or abandon the process of dialogue. Had they filed the petition they would have submitted cogent arguments to the court by way of blaming Islamabad for not honouring or for not conceding one demand from new Delhi. New Delhi has laid a condition that if Pakistan wants the process of talks to get resumed it should stop exporting terror to India,especially to Jammu and Kashmir. Whether Nawaz Sharif addresses the UN general Assembly in Urdu or English will have no meaning. It will have no purpose. Nawaz Sharif's address to the UN General Assembly could b e meaningful and purposeful if he makes an announcement for ending export of terror to India.Once he implements this announcement it is open for Islamabad to wait for New Delhi's offer for the resumption of bilateral talks.Yes,there is no substitute to bilateral talks when both India and Pakistan are nuclear nations.Any armed conflict between the two neighbours could lead to end of human race and civilization in the Indian subcontinent.And if political observers have been pleading for the resumption of bilateral dialogue they should,for the purpose of peace in the South Asian region,prevail upon Islamabad to abandon export of terror to India.

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