ISLAMABAD - Pakistan People’s Party on Wednesday said the meeting between Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar will “backfire” under the “existing circumstances”.
The PPP’s opposition leader in the National Assembly Khurshid Shah said, if the prime minister and the top judge had to meet, “they should have kept it secret.”
“We are not against such meetings. The heads of the institutions should hold meetings but under the circumstances, this meeting will backfire. There is a time for every meeting,” he said, while speaking to journalists here.
The PPP leader did not rule out another National Reconciliation Ordinance, quickly adding: “I cannot say whether it [the NRO] will come or not. I can’t comment on judicial or simple NRO.”
Earlier, Prime Minister Abbasi held an unexpected meeting with Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and “vowed full support for the public-interest initiatives” undertaken by the top judge.
There were speculations that the meeting was aimed at improving the relations between the judiciary and the government amid the political tensions.
The one-on-one meeting lasted for around two hours.
The meeting came as the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Nawaz Sharif and his family members are facing corruption cases.
On Wednesday, Justice Nisar said several matters would progress smoothly after the meeting. During the hearing of the case pertaining to facilities in federal hospitals, he said: “No summary will now be halted. We will let the government work.”
Khurshid Shah said the PPP believed in the system.
“We need NROs when the institutions are weak. The PPP supports strong institutions,” he said.
Referring to the PM-CJ meeting, Shah said the details were only released about some “issues” that were discussed.
“Who will take practical steps to resolve the issues. The judiciary should call the chief ministers and guide them about the practical steps,” he added.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, PPP Secretary General Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was still expressing his inner hatred against Benazir Bhutto.
Reacting to Nawaz Sharif’s statement regarding SGS Cotecna case, he said, the evidence against Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the then National Accountability Bureau chief Saifur Rehman were part of Supreme Court record and two judges including the then chief justice Lahore High Court were dismissed from service.
“The Supreme Court had observed that bias against [the] PPP leadership was floating on the surface of the record of the case,” Bokhari contended.
Despite every effort, he said, Nawaz Sharif and his “coterie of conspirators” could not prove a single charge against Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari in the SGS Cotecna case. He alleged that Nawaz Sharif spent millions of hard-earned money of the people of Pakistan in fictitious and concocted cases against the PPP leadership.
Bokhri asked Nawaz Sharif to tell the people of Pakistan “how his children become billionaires.”
Separately, PPP-Parliamentarians Secretary Information Dr Nafisa Shah asked women of the country to join the PPP to guarantee the rights of women.
Addressing a gathering here on Wednesday, she said that former president Asif Ali Zardari and the PPP Chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, wanted women representation in every field.
“The PPP has the largest number of women senators and leader of opposition in the Senate [Sherry Rehman] is also a woman. [The] PPP is striving to make Pakistan a country where women feel completely safe and there is no violence against them,” she said. Dr Shah said that the PPP was following the vision and philosophy of Benazir Bhutto.