PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel on Monday disposed of a contempt of court petition against provincial revenue minister Ali Amin Gandapur asking him to be careful in future.

Mr. Gandapur has already rendered an unconditional apology stating thathe could not even think of scandalising the court or the worthy chief justice and a private television channel had aired his statement out of context.

The PHC`s registrar had issued a notice to Mr. Gandapur on Apr 25 saying the latter had leveled baseless allegations against the chief justice in a news conference on Apr 23 regarding interference in developmental projects of DI Khan district which was tantamount to scandalising the superior judiciary.

A representative of Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) appeared before the bench and said the private Pashto television channel, which had aired the controversialpress conference of the minister, had already tendered unconditional apology and had assured that it would not repeat the said mistake in future.

He said the Pemra had fined the said channel Rs600,000 for broadcasting the controversial programme and the said amount was deposited with the authority by the channel.

The Pemra representative added that the channel had first clarified its position on the matter and then apologised for it in a programme.

Additional advocate general Mohammad Sohail also turned up and said Mr. Gandapur had earlier submitted his statement wherein he had tendered an apology.In an earlier hearing, Mr. Gandapur`s counsel Abdul Lateef Afridi had said the contempt of court notice was issued to his client for addressing a news conference.

He had said his client had not used any contemptuous words for the judiciary and he held judiciary in high esteem.

In his reply to the contempt of court notice, Mr Gandapur had denied trying to scandalise the court and said he had mentioned a civil works contractor misusing the name of the chief justice for blackmailing government officials.

He claimed that the said contractor was awarded different contracts of roads on which he had even not begunwork despite the fact that the financial year was nearing end.

The minister added that the local press had wrongly published the news item which had created a wrong impression.

CONTEMPT PETITION FILED: Several employees of prison department from BPS-1 to BPS-15 have moved the high court requesting to initiate contempt of court proceedings against concerned officials responsible for nonimplementation of the court orders regardingupgradation oftheirposts.

A contempt of court petition was filed by Abdul Samad Baig and several other employees through advocate Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah stating that earlier awrit petition was filed by the petitioners for upgradation of different posts from Grade 1 to 15 in the prison department across the province.

They said the said petition was filed on different grounds and subsequently on Aug 4, 2015, a two-member bench had accepted the petitioners` plea with the direction to the provincial government to upgrade posts from Grade 1 to 15.

The petitioners contended that despite passage of over a year the provincial government had not been implementing the said order.

The respondents in the petition are the provincial chief, home and finance secretaries.