ISLAMABAD: Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) lashed out at the military on Wednesday, questioning its “involvement” in commercial activities.
He was hearing a petition demanding to make the Faizabad sit-in inquiry report public.
Justice Siddiqui remarked: “No army in the world is involved in commercial activities but ours is selling even cement, meat and bread.” He said that the court would issue a notice to defence secretary to know about the stance of the ministry over the issue.
“They want to earn as per a commercial model but want to be dealt with like an armed force,” he said. Justice Siddiqui went on to say that people have been made mental, economic and moral slaves.
The court issued a notice to the attorney general, seeking a reply on the issue.
The petitioner, through his counsel, contended that they had approached the registrar office for access to the report but the plea was denied. Justice Siddiqui replied on a lighter note, saying that he was already facing six references against him and it seemed that the petitioner wanted Siddiqui to face the seventh one.
“The report has been sealed as per a court order,” he told the lawyer.
The case was deferred for an indefinite period. Separately, Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court on Wednesday also came down hard on security agencies for “failing to submit a new report” on last year’s Faizabad sit-in.
A three-member apex court bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam was hearing a case on the sit-in staged by Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) that had crippled the routine life in the capital for almost three weeks. The sit-in had come to an end after the army brokered a deal between the protesters and the government. As the hearing went underway, Justice Isa remarked that those “claiming to be ‘Aashiq-e-Rasool (SAW)’ are enemies of Islam as they portray a horrible picture of religion”.
He asked the attorney general if the agencies had submitted a report to submit. The attorney general replied that no report had been furnished because the court had not passed any orders to this effect. Justice Isa said that the security agencies should have submitted a new report when the court had expressed its dissatisfaction over the previous report on the same issue. “Who is paying you? Who is paying the Inter-Services Intelligence? No one should consider itself above the law,” he said while addressing the attorney general. “The army did not establish this country and the state will not be ruled on the whims and wishes of anyone.”
Published in Daily Times, April 26th 2018.
