Islamabad (Web Desk): Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) Justice Babar Sattar on Monday dismissed pleas filed by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) seeking his recusal from audio leaks case.
During the hearing, the justice inquired who gave the federal agencies authority to file the petitions.
Additional Attorney General (AAG) Munawar Iqbal Dogal replied that the FIA requested to transfer the case to another court, as the agency had objected to Justice Sattar hearing the case as he was one of the six judges who penned a letter alleging interference in judicial matters by intelligence agencies.
To this, Justice Sattar inquired what was the link between the FIA and ISI and asked if the FIA was a "proxy" of the ISI.
“The judges of this court support Justice Shaukat Siddiqui's allegations, the judges also backed the demand for a probe into the allegations, the part of the letter you read is related to the ISI and not the FIA. Does the FIA have anything to do with installing hidden cameras in judges' houses?”
The AAG, however, replied in the negative and stated that he read the mentioned portion of the letter as it discussed the role of agencies.
"Is this how you will define conflict of interest," Justice Sattar asked while referring to the pleas.
"If the executive blackmails the judges, will the judges then have a conflict of interest," the judge inquired.
The court then disposed of the petitions with imposing fine worth Rs500,000 each on the FIA, PTA and Pemra while fine and also hinted at contempt of court action against DG FIA.
Expressing annoyance on the petitions, the IHC sought the IB’s reply on who directed the filing of the applications and also summoned the Joint DG IB.
Justice Sattar stated that the purpose of such pleas was to influence judicial proceedings.
On Saturday, the FIA, PTA, PEMRA and IB had moved the IHC seeking Justice Sattar's recusal from the case.
In a miscellaneous petition, the authorities pleaded with Justice Sattar to distance himself from the case.
In the plea, PEMRA maintained that the case remains pending despite its chairman appearing before the court multiple times.
It added that a separate bench of the IHC has already decided on another case of a similar nature.
The petition requested that the same bench should decide on this case as well.
“To fulfill the demands of justice, Justice Babar should excuse himself from hearing the case,” the petition maintained.
It is pertinent to mention that the petitions being heard by Justice Sattar include those filed by former first lady Bushra Bibi and ex-chief justice Saqib Nisar’s son Najamul Saqib.
Saqib had challenged the inquiry of a parliamentary committee on his alleged audio in which he purportedly sought a bribe, while Bushra Bibi had challenged an FIA inquiry based on her alleged conversation with Zulfi Bukhari, a former aide to then-PM Imran, for selling Toshakhana gifts.
In May last year, Justice Sattar had asked the intelligence agencies and PTA to trace the source of the audio leak while Pemra was told not to broadcast the unauthorised and leaked conversation of citizens.
