ISLAMABAD: Monday marked one of the worst days ever in the history of the country’s judiciary as the PPP government crossed all limits in humiliating and embarrassing the Supreme Court in a shameful way with the attorney general simply keeping mum on repeated questions of the Chief Justice of Pakistan clearly to disgrace the honour of the bench.
None of the FIA officials appeared in the Court Room No 1 despite being present in the SC building. The court continued to exhibit extraordinary and unlimited restraint. During the hearing of the case Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani became the focal point as it was divulged from different statements and record of the cases that it was only Premier Gilani who was sitting on all the summaries sent to him by the Establishment Division and ministries in compliance with the Supreme Court orders in both the Hajj corruption case and NICL cases.
The prime minister or his members of his are being directly involved in these scandals. In the Hajj scandal, Gilani’s son is alleged to have received big kickbacks but investigations in this regard are yet to be completed and are halted because of transfer of the investigation officer Hussain Asghar by the prime minister himself.
In the NICL scam, the major accused, Khanewal-based Ayaz Khan Niazi, is a close family friend of Premier Gilani and is accused of looting and plundering of the state-owned insurance company in connivance with some top PML-Q leaders who later became coalition partners of Gilani.
According to top government sources, one of the most senior govt leaders is directly dictating other officials to confront the chief justice and the Supreme Court, and two of his confidants are monitoring the execution of this strategy.
One confidant is controlling the legal side and the other the executive side. The confidant controlling the legal side gives briefings to the attorney general and the officials supposed to appear before the apex court, and asks them to act to humiliate the bench to attain the objective of pressuring the apex court to the level that it quits hearing of corruption cases in future.
Even the representatives of the media were stunned over the extremely insulting attitude of the attorney general and federal government officials who continued to humiliate the court throughout the day — from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm.
During the hearing of the NICL case, the chief justice asked the attorney general: “We have asked to produce before us the reaction of the prime minister and secretary interior. Where is that reaction?” In reply, AG Maulvi Anwar-ul-Haq, a former PCO judge, kept standing quietly seeing directly in eyes of the chief justice.
The Chief Justice of Pakistan repeated his question for three times and on all occasions the attorney general continued the same already scripted act by keeping quiet and watching the bench.
“Have you asked someone to give us the reaction for disobeying and non-compliance of our orders,” the chief justice questioned again. This time the attorney general stunned the courtroom by saying: “I have discussed it with somebody.”
The attorney general was clearly admitting that he has not officially conveyed the orders of the apex court to the prime minister and was making mockery of the court by saying that he has merely discussed the court order with someone without divulging the name of the consultee.
DG FIA Tehsin Anwar Shah, against whom the apex court has directed to initiate proceedings for misconduct under E&D Rules 1973 in its July 14 orders, continued to confront the apex court and did not appear before the court.
The Supreme Court started issuing orders to call him in the court but he never showed up. Staff of DG FIA befooled the staff of the Registrar of the Supreme Court till 1:00 pm and finally said that the DG had left for the province of Sindh. When the chief justice questioned the secretary establishment whether he has complied with court orders regarding starting of proceedings against Tehsin Anwar Shah, he replied that he had sent a summary in compliance with Supreme Court orders to the ‘competent authority’, the prime minister.
At one point the chief justice observed that the prime minister is sitting on every summary sent to him in compliance with the Supreme Court orders. The chief justice observed: “The prime minister knows that these are Supreme Court orders but he does not care. We know that the only objective is to let down our orders. We know this.”
It is worth-mentioning here that director legal FIA Azam Khan reached the Supreme Court at 9:00 am but did not appear in the Court Room No 1. It is learnt that Azam was called back by the DG FIA. Monday’s operation to humiliate the Supreme Court was being monitored by a newly inducted senior federal minister. Additional Director General FIA Chaudhry Manzoor once entered the courtroom and also stood before the rostrum but later disappeared mysteriously while the court continued to ask where he had gone.
Justice Ghulam Rabbani, during the hearing of the Hajj corruption case, even said that the government had crossed all limits in violating and ridiculing the court orders. He said the court was doing its constitutional duty and the government is blocking each and every order and bringing the system to a standstill.
He said: “Mr. attorney general, if the government is not willing to obey any of the Supreme Court orders and does not want to let the system run it should be said clearly.” Top lawyers and those present in the court on Monday were of the unanimous opinion that if the government had crossed all limits in confronting and humiliating the Supreme Court, the apex court had also crossed all the limits to show restraint.
We can make a great day out of it, with the public behind him and any police officers that man up and follow the Chief Justice's orders.
lets hope so that they have truly realized that honest is the only path forward for our Pakistan...
