ISLAMABAD: Justice (retd) Khalilur Rehman Ramday has sent a defamation notice to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan for accusing the former judge of being complicit in rigging during the May 2013 polls.
The former outspoken SC judge, in his legal notice which is available with The Express Tribune said, “The false, slanderous, libelous and sinful accusations in question leveled by you, which are a manifestation of the worst kind of ‘hate speech’, have injured and harmed my hard-earned reputation and have lowered/tend to lower me in the estimation of others. These allegations have subjected/tend to subject me to ridicule, unjust criticism, dislike and hatred.”
“Not just this, your malicious allegations have also harmed and injured [my] pride, which members of my family including my children and my descendants, had always had in me and your said reckless accusations have caused immeasurable agony, pain and suffering to us all,” the notice added.
Justice Ramday has given Imran a 14-day limit to apologise for his accusations.
“I, therefore, call upon you to tender a public apology to me withdrawing and repudiating the false, the illusory, the unfounded and the baseless allegations in question leveled by you against me. May I also inform you that as per Section 8 of the Defamation Ordinance 2002, you have fourteen days time to do the needful, failing which I shall be at liberty to take recourse to such legal remedies in such jurisdictions as may be available to me to vindicate my honour and respect which include my right to sue you for damages and to prosecute you for the criminal act of defamation,” said the legal notice.
Ramday, in his defamation notice, also said that the PTI chief had accused him of having a ‘dawaat’ at his house in which he had invited returning officers and had former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as the chief guest.
He said he had been accused of orchestrating this ‘dawaat’ during which the former chief justice was allegedly motivating the returning officers to help Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
“This allegation, to say the least, is malicious and a baseless and unfounded fabrication which is absolutely false and denied as such,” he said in the notice.
