Axact’s lawsuit: Plea against FIA inquiry, ‘media campaign’ rejected

Court says initiating probe is prerogative of the agency.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday dismissed Axact’s lawsuit against the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)’s investigation into the company and the media’s alleged campaign against the group.

Justice Salahuddin Panhwar rejected the plea filed by the self-proclaimed “world’s leading IT company” against the interior ministry, the FIA and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra).

The probe was ordered by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar after a New York Times exposé claimed that Axact was running a “fake education empire”.

The IT company sought a restraining order against the FIA over the federal agency’s ongoing inquiry and Pemra over media organisations’ alleged defamatory campaign against Axact.

The court was told that the investigation was initiated on the basis of a “false, fabricated and malicious report”. Axact claimed that the FIA had failed to seek mandatory permission from the competent court before launching the inquiry.

The company also claimed that the interior minister was “overwhelmed” by the “defamatory campaign” and so he had ordered the probe “under pressure”.

Regarding the “media campaign”, Axact argued that Pemra had failed to take action against the media organisations engaged in running a “malicious drive against the company to damage its reputation”.

Justice Panhwar observed that initiating an investigation is an absolute prerogative of the FIA and that in no way does an inquiry label a person or a company as “guilty”.

As for Pemra, he said it was the absolute domain of the regulatory authority to ensure that the broadcasting is within the rules or Section 20(c) of the Pemra Ordinance 2002.

Section 20(c) states that a person who is issued a licence to run a television channel shall “ensure that all programmes and advertisements do not contain or encourage violence, terrorism, racial, ethnic or religious discrimination, sectarianism, extremism, militancy, hatred, pornography, obscenity, vulgarity or other material offensive to commonly accepted standards of decency”.

Justice Panhwar said the civil court could competently examine the ordinance of an authority but could not legally assume jurisdiction of that authority, as it would amount to interfering in the functions of a legally constituted authority. With these observations, the court dismissed the lawsuit.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2015.