Memo case: IHC courtroom to be fitted with video conferencing facility

Haqqani files application against Ijaz’s counsel.

ISLAMABAD:


While preparations to equip the Islamabad High Court’s courtroom number one, where a three-member judicial commission is hearing the Memo case, with a video conference facility are in full swing, former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani filed an application on Friday against Mansoor Ijaz’s counsel for attributing “fallacious and fabricated claims” to the former envoy.


A three-member judicial commission headed by Balochistan High Court (BHC) Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa is hearing the Memogate case.

The revelation regarding the video conference facility was made on the BBC’s website.


However, the website said that the purpose behind the installation of the facility was still unclear in terms of whether it was being done to interact with a specific individual or for the commission’s convenience.

Meanwhile, saying that Ijaz’s counsel Akram Sheikh had attributed false claims to him, Haqqani filed an application on Friday before the disciplinary committee of the Pakistan Bar Council for taking action against Sheikh.

Sheikh, on December 30, had alleged that his client Ijaz had received threats through an email address belonging to Haqqani, the former envoy said in his application, adding that such “baseless allegations carried no weight because there weren’t true and were based on mala fide intent”.

Ijaz’s email address was published in newspapers as a result of his own and his counsel’s efforts, the application said. “Neither the petitioner, nor anyone on his behalf, sent out an email on his behalf,” it further said, adding, “The petitioner is a law abiding citizen and this exercise was only carried out to unnecessarily render the petitioner irresponsible and to create false impressions and guilt by association, which does not reflect well on a senior counsel of Sheikh’s stature,” he said, and requested the committee to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Sheikh under the Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14th, 2012. 
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