IHC bench comprises Justice Moshin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan.
ISLAMABAD – A larger bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) will Monday (today) resume hearing in a contempt of court proceedings initiated after the malicious campaign on social media against Justice Babar Sattar.
The three-member IHC bench comprising Justice Moshin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan will conduct hearing of the case wherein, it had already issued notices to the Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP), Secretary Ministry of Defense, ISI, MI, IB, the Counter-terrorism Department and others. The bench stated in its written order after its last hearing that the instant contempt petition had arisen out of letter dated: 27.04.2024 by Justice Babar Sattar against malicious campaign on social media.
It added that there was prima facie material indicating an orchestrated media campaign aimed at personal criticism of an honourable judge of this Court with the concomitant scandalising of the Court. The bench said that further, the demand for his recusal in WP no. 2758/2023 amounts, prima facie, to obstruction of the course of justice. “We are inclined to issue notices to: the learned Attorney General for Pakistan, the Advocate General Islamabad, Secretary, Ministry of Defence, head of cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency, heads of the information technology/5G warfare wings of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau, the Military Intelligence, and the Counter-terrorism Department of the police, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority through its chairman, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority through its chairman, Director General (Immigration), FIA, Director General Passports, Bureau of Immigration and the Federal Board of Revenue, through its chairman.”
It added, “The agencies and persons at serial nos. (iv) to (vi) above are directed to carry out – independently of each other – data-scraping of the hashtags “WillBabarSattarAnswer” and “Foreign-Munsif-Namanzoor”, and of the account “Pakistan Lawyers Forum”, and to plot the data into a spreadsheet with the following minimum data fields: For X (formerly Twitter) Handle of the account tweeting, Name of the account tweeting, Tweet text, Tweet published time and date, Number of replies to the tweet, Number of retweets, Number of favourites, Initial analysis covering total tweets, retweets, and users for each trending hashtag.
For other social media, it said that the first 5 posts or other content questioning the nationality of Justice Babar Sattar and his continuing to hear WP no. 2758/2023. The identities of the respective account holders releasing such content.
For broadcast media, the bench said that PEMRA is to submit a concise report listing the first, second, and then the third TV channel airing the topics which are the subject of this petition, along with the editorial approvals for the content to be aired, together with PEMRA’s analysis of any breach of the applicable code of conduct.
The IHC bench also directed that the entities at serial nos. (viii) and (ix) of paragraph 2 above are to submit a concise investigation report as to how and through whom the travelling documents with photographs of the Judge and his family became accessible to third parties who are not public officials.
It continued that the entity at serial no. (x) of paragraph 2 above is to submit a concise report as to how and through whom the description and other details of the personal assets of the Judge and his family became accessible to third parties who are not public officials.
