NEW DELHI: A significant backdoor conflict between the judiciary and Pakistan’s intelligence company has come out into the open because the Islamabad excessive court docket has sought motion directed at Inter-Providers Intelligence’s (ISI) “interference” in judicial issues.The excessive court docket has urged the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) to convene a judicial conference over the ISI’s alleged interference.All seven Islamabad excessive court docket judges, barring chief decide Amer Farooq, wrote to the Supreme Judicial Council and all Supreme Courtroom judges to attract their consideration in the direction of makes an attempt of senior ISI officers to stress judges and affect judicial proceedings.In a letter to the SJC, six judges of the IHC–Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, Justice Babar Sattar, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir, and Justice Saman Fafat Imtiaz–sought steerage from the council on the “interference” of the spy businesses in courts’ affairs, reported information company ANI quoting Geo Information.”We are writing to seek guidance from the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) with regard to the duty of a judge to report and respond to actions on the part of members of the executive, including operatives of intelligence agencies, that seek to interfere with discharge of his/her official functions and qualify as intimidation, as well as the duty to report any such actions that come to his/her attention in relation to colleagues and/or members of the courts that the High Court supervises,” the letter learn.The event comes days after the highest court docket declared the removing of former Islamabad excessive court docket decide Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui unlawful and directed authorities to contemplate Siddiqui as a retired decide.”This matter has arisen in the aftermath of the judgment dated 22.03.2024 rendered by the Supreme Court in the matter of Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui vs. Federation of Pakistan (C.P. No. 76 of 2018), in which it has been declared that Justice Siddiqui, who was the senior puisne judge of Islamabad High Court (“IHC”), was wrongfully removed on the basis of a report of the Supreme Judicial Council (“SJC”) dated 11.10.2018, and would be deemed to have retired as a judge of the IHC,” it learn.”Justice Siddiqui had been removed after he had publicly alleged that operatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence (“ISI”), led by Major General Faiz Hameed (DG-C of ISI), were determining the constitution of benches at IHC and interfering with proceedings of the Accountability Court Islamabad,” the letter added.The court docket famous that the Supreme Judicial Council proceeded towards Justice Siddiqui on the “assumption that the truth or falseness of the allegations levelled” by the previous decide was “irrelevant”.The Islamabad excessive court docket judges, of their letter, additionally famous that the code of conduct for judges prescribed by SJC doesn’t information on how they “must react to and/or report incidents that are tantamount to intimidation and interfere with judicial independence”.The judges stated that they “believe it is imperative to inquire into and determine whether there exists a continuing policy on the part of the executive branch of the state” to intrude in judicial affairs.(With ANI inputs)
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