Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif sent a Rs10 billion defamation notice to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Friday.
The notice, which has been filed under sections 4 and 9 of the Defamation Ordinance, 2002, states that Imran falsely accused Shehbaz of making him a financial offer for his ‘silence over the Panama Papers case’.
The petition states that “the facts and circumstances giving rise to the filing of the instant suit are that since the last week of April, 2017, the Defendant [Imran Khan] started uttering, spreading and resorting to the publication, communication and circulation of maliciously false, baseless and unfounded oral statements and representations against the Plaintiff [Shehbaz].”
Moreover, it states that Imran claimed that Shehbaz “offered to pay a sum of Rs10,000,000,000 to the Defendant in exchange for his withdrawing/backing-off from, or remaining silent on the issue of the Panama Papers’ case.”
The suit also states that Imran Khan made the “utterly false statement” on different television shows as well as at a public gathering.