ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) has indicted former law minister Babar Awan for contempt of court, Geo News reported.
However, he refused to accept the charges framed against him and pleaded not guilty.
The former minister argued that the Attorney General was never heard during the case and there is no clear contempt of court law in the country.
The court said Babar Awan had ridiculed the SC on 1st December, 2011 and observed that the words and tone and tenor of his speech were contemptuous.
The SC bench comprising Justice Athar Saeed and Justice Ejaz Afzal was hearing the case.
On Wednesday, the SC allowed the counsel for Babar Awan to withdraw Intra Court Appeal (ICA), seeking a restraining order for a two-member bench that would indict his client in contempt of court charges.
The three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain accepted the request of the counsel who wanted to raise certain objections on the plea before the two-member bench already seized the contempt matter.
The SC on January 17 had temporarily suspended the former law minister's practicing licence under Order V, rule 30 of the Supreme Court Rules, 1980 for allegedly ridiculing a show cause notice served upon him by another bench for criticizing court's order on the memo case with recitation of Punjabi verses.
Babar in his plea said that he was a professional lawyer having no other source of livelihood and his fundamental right stood suspended after the suspension of his practicing licence. He stated that a significant number of litigants who engaged him as lawyer over a period of years were suffering irreparable loss, while his staff was also facing hardships.
He said that whatever he spoke in the press conference as well as in the press talk was unintentional and based on inadvertence. He requested the court to accept his apology and recall its January 17 order.