SC takes exception to misreporting of ‘incapable govt’ remarks

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to Urdu newspaper Jang and English daily The News for allegedly misreporting a court story, in which the top judiciary had appeared to criticise the government in its remarks.

The two publications, in their lead stories today, had reported that the Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar, while hearing a suo motu case of illegal construction in Banigala, had “remarked that the current government lacked capability and planning”.

The top judge today distanced himself from those remarks, adding that “this news is untrue”.

“Both the newspapers ran wrong stories,” Justice Nisar said. “We had talked about the CDA (Capital Development Authority) in the Banigala case. There is recording available of the court’s proceedings; we can play that.”

“[TV] programmes were also done on the basis of this wrong news,” Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan said, to which Additional Attorney General Nayyer Rizvi added: “Tickers were also run [on the same].”

Later on, in its official notification, the court said: “We are surprised as the court never made such observations about the federal government. [Those] observations were made against the Capital Development Authority. This is an instance of gross misreporting.”

The court issued notices to the publications’ printers, publishers and editors, with the directives to respond within a week.