PEMRA notified the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday that former prime minister Imran Khan’s speeches might be broadcast without restriction.
This was said by Haroon Duggal, a counsel for Pemra, during a hearing last year when the founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) petitioned against Pemra’s decision to prohibit all television channels from airing speeches and press conferences given by Imran.
Judge Shams Mehmood Mirza presided over the proceeding.
Shortly after the hearing concluded, Justice Mirza issued a directive to the media regulating authority, telling them not to exert pressure on television stations to stop airing Imran’s speeches.
The regulatory board outright forbade any satellite TV channels from airing any of the former prime minister’s comments, either live or taped, on March 5, 2023.
“The media regulatory authority has noted that Mr. Imran Khan, Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, is consistently making baseless accusations and spreading hate speech through his provocative statements against state institutions and officers. This is a threat to public peace and tranquility and undermines the maintenance of law and order,” the order read.
The following day, the PTI’s previous chairman petitioned the LHC to overturn the Pemra’s prohibition order.
Petitioner Muhammed Ahmed Pansota, a barrister, argued that in the case known as “Imran Ahmad Khan Niazi Vs PEMRA,” Chief Justice Athar Minallah of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had previously ruled that a comparable PEMRA prohibition order had gone “ultra vires the Ordinance” (i.e., exceeded its authority) for comparable reasons.
In the petition, Imran’s legal team claimed that PEMRA had exceeded their authority and disregarded the rights protected by Articles 19 and 19-A when issuing the challenged order.
The media regulatory authority’s ban was suspended on March 9, 2023, by Justice Mirza, who presided over the hearing.
It should be mentioned that the Pemra had also issued a ban on broadcasting any of Imran’s speeches, either live or recorded, on August 21, 2022. This came after the PTI chief had threatened to punish the inspector general and deputy inspector general of Islamabad for “torturing” party leader Shahbaz Gill while in physical custody, and he had threatened not to spare them.
After learning that Gill had been the victim of “torture,” he criticised Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Zeba Chaudhry for granting the police’s request for physical remand. We will not abandon you, Zeba, and we will take legal action against her as well.
