Few within state forcibly disappearing people: IHC CJ

Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Athar Minallah remarked on Thursday that enforced disappearances meant that a few people within the state forcibly disappearing people and the state felt embarrassed to admit it.

While hearing a case of contempt of court proceedings about the recovery of information technology (IT) expert Sajid Mahmood, the court summoned the interior secretary and the finance secretary to appear on October 19. The chief justice also ordered for bringing a cheque for the affected family.

“Do you know what the enforced disappearances are? It means that some elements within the state are involved in enforced disappeared of people. It is a matter of embarrassment for the state to tell someone, whose loved-one has disappeared, that someone among us has taken him away,” he said.

“We are not asking whether the citizen was picked up by the Livestock Department or someone else, the state has acknowledged that this is a case of enforced disappearance,” the chief justice remarked further.

Additional Attorney General Tariq Khokhar informed the court that he had nothing to do with any delay in this case. The chief justice said that the court dealt with these cases very carefully and it did charge everyone.

“The state has acknowledged its failure, you have acknowledged that this is a case of enforced disappearance. When you are responsible, you have to compensate this family for the failure of the state,” the chief justice said. “The court will go to every level to enforce its order.”

Khokhar raised objection on the order dictated by CJ in contempt of court proceedings, saying that if the contempt proceedings started, a law officer would act as the prosecutor. He submitted that the court could issue contempt notices to individual persons and not to the Federation or any office.

He asserted that he could not and would not defend any contempt, enforced disappearance or failure of the alleged contemners in implementing the court orders. He pointed out that the principle of judicial temperament was binding on him just as it was binding on the court.

Following the disappearance of Mahmood, the IHC had ruled in 2018 that the government should bear the expenses of the his family till his recovery.

The court had also imposed fines of Rs100,000 each on defence secretary Lt Gen (retd) Zameerul Hassan, chief commissioner Zulfiqar Haider, inspector general of police Khalid Khattak, district magistrate Capt (retd) Mushtaq Ahmed and Rs300,000 on the then Shalimar police station chief Qaiser Niaz.

The contempt petition contended that despite the passage of more than two years, the court orders had not been complied with. The family of the missing person had requested the court to initiate contempt proceedings against the parties.