Court dismisses DIG’s plea to quash FIR against him

Police officer’s ex-wife complained to FIA that her image was tarnished through indecent postings on social media

ISLAMABAD: The Gilgit Baltistan’s Chief Court on Saturday dismissed a writ petition by a DIG, requesting that an FIR lodged against him for allegedly defaming his former wife on Facebook be quashed.

The division bench, led by Justice Malik Haq Nawaz, passed a six-page order in connection with the petition filed by DIG Crime Gilgit Baltistan Syed Junaid Arshad.

The DIG had married a girl in 2003, but the marriage was dissolved in June 2016.

The FIR, lodged at the National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes at FIA Lahore on June 6, 2017 maintained that the DIG’s former wife had filed a complaint on March 14 that an unknown person was making obnoxious calls and blackmailing her. She also complained that her sexually explicit images were being posted on a fake Facebook profile, tarnishing her reputation.



After an inquiry, the FIA’s Cyber Crime Circle found out that the DIG was in contact with one of his friends named Danish Ghani and instigated him to establish an affair with his ex-wife.

The FIR contended that Ghani had confessed that he became involved in the crime on the instigation of the petitioner.

FIA authorities had also obtained digital record of all communication between the petitioner and Ghani.

Abdul Khaliq, the counsel for the DIG, insisted that FIA had registered a false case against his client without following mandatory provisions of the law and also bypassed the mandatory procedure required to be followed before taking action against a public servant.



He maintained that the case was registered at the behest of his ex-wife, who intended to grab his client’s property. He requested the court to use its “ample powers” to quash the FIR as it had been registered with mala fide intention and without jurisdiction.

The FIR, he said, should have been lodged in Gilgit where his client was serving.

In response, Shafqat Abbasi, the lawyer representing the DIG’s ex-wife, submitted that the petitioner was a police officer, who showed a reckless regard to courts. He said the DIG was playing hide and seek with the court.

The counsel informed the court that the DIG had already moved a writ petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC), which had been dismissed as withdrawn on September 7.



The FIR, he said, had been lodged in Lahore and this court had no jurisdiction to quash it beyond its territorial jurisdiction.

The court agreed and observed that it had no jurisdiction to quash the FIR.

The court stated that the writ under Article 71(2) of Self Governance Order, 2009, was discretionary relief and the most important aspect of exercising jurisdiction was that the party “invoking jurisdiction of this court must come with clean hands, therefore this petition is dismissed”.

Abbasi later told The Express Tribune that this was a test case for FIA, adding that it would determine how the agency proceeded against a police officer. Similarly, he said, it remained to be seen when the Establishment Division in Islamabad would move to initiate departmental proceedings against the accused.