ISLAMABAD – The Prime Minister Office has clarified that Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will turn up before the Supreme Court, provided he is summoned.
According to a spokesperson of PM House, no summons have been received up till now regarding a Supreme Court order seeking Abbasi’s appearance before the court in a personal capacity.
“The prime minister respects the judiciary and believes in rule of law,” the PM Office stated further.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/headline/cjp-nisar-summons-ceos-of-all-airlines-including-pm-abbasi/
The statement came a day after Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Saqib Nisar summoned the chief executive officers of all airlines of the country to the apex court’s Karachi Registry in a suo motu case on fake degrees of airline employees.
During the hearing, the top judge was informed that one of the airlines was owned by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, to which, CJP Nisar remarked that the court could summon him as CEO of the company, not as the prime minister of the country.
Afterwards, all the heads of the airlines were directed to appear in persons at SC’s Karachi Registry on Saturday.
Fake Degree Case
The top judge of the country was left surprised when it was revealed that 24 pilots and 67 cabin crew members of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) possessed fake degrees; 17 pilots have already left the national flag carrier, five have obtained stay orders from the Sindh High Court and one from a civil judge in Islamabad.
The figures were presented by Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) as it submitted a report of 451 pilots and 29,172 crew members of PIA.
On behalf of the CAA, Law Officer Sajid Ilyas Bhatti informed the three-member bench headed by the chief justice that of the total 451 pilots at present, degrees of 319 have been verified and found to be genuine by the PIA while the certificates/degrees of 124 pilots are under scrutiny.
The CAA report said private airlines, Shaheen Air International Limited, Airblue Limited and Serene Air, had sought time to verify degrees of their pilots and crew members.
On the occasion, the CAA’s representative responded that Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the prime minister of Pakistan, was the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Airblue.
Upon this, the top judge observed that it was a conflict of interests, remarking that the PM will have to appear as the CEO of the airline to inform the bench about the degrees of pilots.
