Shehbaz moves court for daily hearing of defamation case against PM Imran

LAHORE: PML-N president and Leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif said Saturday that he has appealed to a sessions court for hearing his defamation suit against Prime Minister Imran Khan on a daily basis.

In a tweet, Shehbaz said in the defamation case that he filed against the prime minister “for his blatant lies of offering him Rs10 billion”, PM Imran has “sought 33 deferments so far”.

He added: “I have petitioned the court to hear the case on daily basis. Imran Khan failed to submit his written reply to the court despite passage of three years.”

The defamation case

In 2017, Shehbaz Sharif sent a Rs10 billion defamation notice to PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

The notice, which had been filed under sections 4 and 9 of the Defamation Ordinance, 2002, stated that Imran falsely accused Shehbaz of making him a financial offer for his “silence over the Panama Papers case”.

The petition stated that “the facts and circumstances giving rise to the filing of the instant suit are that since the last week of April, 2017, the Defendant [Imran Khan] started uttering, spreading and resorting to the publication, communication and circulation of maliciously false, baseless and unfounded oral statements and representations against the Plaintiff [Shehbaz].”

Moreover, it said that Imran claimed that Shehbaz “offered to pay a sum of [Rs10 billion] to the Defendant in exchange for his withdrawing/backing-off from, or remaining silent on the issue of the Panama Papers’ case.”

In April 2017, Khan during a gathering at Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Lahore, alleged that he had been made an offer in the Panama case.

“Just imagine how much money he offered me to be silent — Rs10 billion! If he can offer me this much money, just imagine how much he could offer to others. That is why if we don’t maintain public pressure on this issue, then after two months it will be dragged to the next year,” Khan had claimed.

In an interview televised following the statement, Khan refused to reveal the name of the person who made the offer but did state that this person was close to the Punjab chief minister.