ISLAMABAD: Senior lawyer Abdul Hafeez Pirzada apologised to Rauf Klasra, Editor Reporting The News, after his client, CEO GDF-Suez Mr Stephan who had come from London to attend the Supreme Court proceedings, misbehaved with him outside the courtroom before the announcement of the judgement.

Pirzada later told the court that he had already said sorry to the reporter so the matter should be closed. The journalist did not further press the matter, after bringing it to the notice of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary that he was threatened by the chief executive officer GDF-Suez. The CJ said now that we have written the judgment no arguments could be entertained at this stage, so if there was any threat to Klasra, he could file an FIR.

An unpleasant situation developed when the three-member bench retired to write the judgement. The reporter was going out of Court Room No 1 when suddenly CEO GDF-Suez confronted him in the lobby saying: “You have defamed us and I will take legal action against you”.

The journalist told him that the Supreme Court has made him (Rauf Klasra) party to the case after taking note of his story dated March 29. He said he would defend his story wherever it was required. He also informed Stephan that the best thing for him would have been to ask his respected lawyer Pirzada to communicate with him. But Stephan repeated that his firm was defamed and he would take action.

The journalist told him that he never directly accused his firm of indulging in corruption or irregularities. He said basically the thrust of his reports was against the Petroleum Ministry officials who had ignored the lowest bid. He told him that as a corporate firm, GDF-Suez was free to protect its business interests while remaining within the legal norms. Secondly, the reporter explained to the fuming CEO GDF-Suez that despite his rude behaviour, he was still ready to publish his point of view in his newspapers.

He was told that his lawyer Pirzada had been targeting the story and its contents during the course of arguments and this was also reported in The News. He was also told that if he still thought that his firm was absolutely correct, then he should have contested the case before the SC till the end instead of agreeing to the four-point formula presented by the Supreme Court.
Source: The News
Date:4/29/2010