Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Athar Minallah said on Friday that the courts have given a clear message, and no one will be allowed to violate the Constitution.
Justice Minallah's remark came as he heard the case regarding the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) harassment of journalists. Journalist Arshed Sharif and his counsel were also present in the court.
During the hearing the IHC CJ questioned the intrigue surrounding the events of the night of April 9 when the courts were reported to have opened at night, out of their usual schedule.
Referring to an anchorperson's tv show that he said questioned the high court's unusual functioning on April 9, he questioned whether the idea behind building this narrative was motivated by political reasoning.
Justice Minallah said he was sitting at home when the journalist’s channel was reporting that the IHC chief justice had reached the court and that the court had been opened.
“Do not make these statements for your own benefit,” the chief justice warned.
He further maintained that a prisoner van had been called to the court at the time because protestors had gathered outside the court. "Only the lights of the IHC building had been turned on. What was the problem with that?" he asked.
Justice Minallah further asked whether the journalist wanted the court to be closed and no petition to be heard.
“This court does not believe in contempt of court. This court has heard many cases after hours because it considers that its responsibility,” the CJ said, adding that the journalist was expressing doubts about the court.
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He stated that no one will be allowed to violate the Constitution and that if there was a constitutional crisis or a petition was filed by an oppressed section then the court will open even at 3 am if it has to.
“Journalists were shot at in broad daylight and there was no investigation,” he said, questioning if the journalist had done any programmes on its channel for missing persons or Baloch students.
The journalist replied that "there are instructions on not to run programmes regarding missing persons and that such news also led to threats".
CJ Minallah stated that a policy created in 2019 allowed people to file a petition at any time, adding that people working on the journalist’s news channel may be afraid, but the court feared no one except God.
The journalist’s lawyer claimed that his family had been harassed to which FIA officials said that there was no truth to the allegations, and they had not taken any action or conducted any inquiries.
A day earlier, the IHC had instructed the FIA and capital police to stop harassing the private news channel’s anchorperson and any other journalist.
The court order instructed the FIA's director general and Islamabad inspector general of police (IGP) to nominate their authorised representatives to appear before the court on Friday (today) at 10:30 am.
The order stated that the journalist’s counsel had been told to approach the court as he was being harassed and that the counsel had been unable to establish contact with Sharif.
It furthered that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the FIA had “malafidely and illegally detained the petitioner”.
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