Former Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Gillani had been picked up by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to inquire into allegations of interference by Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) operatives into judicial matters. However, Gillani recused himself from heading the inquiry commission as the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the allegations of interference by ISI operatives in judicial matters.
On Sunday, the opposition parties had outright rejected the setting up of the commission. At least 300 leading lawyers, from different high courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan, also voiced opposition to the toothless commission that was being set up. They had also demanded that the Supreme Court take suo motu cognisance of the matter. They had requested the apex court to exercise its jurisdiction under Article 184(3) of the Pakistan Constitution.
The lawyers have demanded that the apex court should form a Bench of all available judges (full court) to hear the matter. All the proceedings before this Bench should then be telecast live for public, they urged the Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa. It is not clear as to whether the apex court had acted on this request or taken a decision to take suo motu cognisance on its own.
In a roster notification issued on Monday, a seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court will now hear the matter. The Bench to be headed by the CJP Faez Isa will also have Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, all available judges on principal seat Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. The case will be taken up on April 3 at 11.30 am. It is not clear whether the proceedings will be telecast as has happened in a few cases earlier.
Some days ago, in a virtual bombshell, six judges of Islamabad High Court (IHC) had written to the Supreme Judicial Council headed by CJP Qazi Faez Isa asking him if there existed a state policy to “intimidate and coerce judges’’.
The letter was signed by IHC Justices Mohsin Kayani, Tariq Jehangiri, Babar Sattar, Ejaz Khan, Arbab Tahir and Saman Rafat Imtiaz. Interestingly, their letter came after the Supreme Court had quashed the dismissal of former IHC judge Shaukat Azia Siddiqui. Incidentally, Siddiqui was dismissed by the SJC in 2018 as he had alleged interference into judicial matters by Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
It bears mention here that there have been widespread allegations that ISI operatives coerced judges of giving “tailored judgements’’ against Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan. When some judges questioned the maintainability of some cases against Imran, they were threatened with dire consequences. This is thus clearly a case of the Army calling the shots even in judicial processes at all levels in Pakistan.
The six IHC judges also wrote that they had also brought the issue of coercion by ISI operatives to be the notice of IHC Chief Justice as also the then CJP (Isa’s predecessor Umar Ata Bandial). The IHC CJ assured the judges that he had “spoken to the DG of ISI and was assured that no ISI operatives will approach HC judges’’. For good measure, the judges wrote in their letter that nothing changed after the assurance.
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