ISLAMABAD – The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will Monday (today) resume hearing in a petition seeking registration of case against former army chief General (Retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa and former Lt. General (Retd) Faiz Hameed for allegedly ‘misrepresenting events’.
A single bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aamer Farooq will conduct hearing of the petition wherein he had already issued notices to the respondents after hearing a petition seeking action against them for allegedly violating laws pertaining to retired servicemen by distorting facts of various events during media interviews. A petitioner Syed Muhammad Atif Ali filed the writ petition for directions to Director General FIA to register a criminal case against the former army chief and DG ISI while he also sought media ban on certain items.
He cited DG FIA, Chairman PEMRA, Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), Press Association of Pakistan, journalists Javed Chaudhary and Shahid Maitla, former army chief General Bajwa and former DG ISI Lt Gen (Retd) Faiz Hameed as respondents. In his written order, the IHC Chief Justice said that through the instant petition, the petitioner sought direction to respondent No.1 (DG FIA) to take action on his application qua registration of case and also issue a direction to respondents No.2 to 4 to take action on his application against respondents No.5 & 6. During the previous hearing, Raja Rizwan Abbasi Advocate counsel for the petitioner contended that despite the request has been made by the petitioner, no action till to date has been taken. He further contended that the bare reading of the application indicates that a cognizable offence is made out.
Besides the former military officials, the court also issued notices to journalists Javed Chaudhary, Shahid Maitla, PEMRA and others in this matter. The petition alleged that the journalists wrote two articles based on the interviews of the retired generals for viewership which had a “negative impact” on the society. He further alleged that under the guise of freedom of speech, a “criminal act” was committed and a request was filed for the registration of a case but no action had been taken yet. The petitioner claimed that former generals Bajwa and Faiz tainted the national events by portraying them in a false and fabricated manner. He added that in order to gain rating, the news articles presented a negative image of the state institutions under the garb of journalism. He further said that the ongoing campaign in the context of these incidents is an attempt to create distrust between the people and the state institutions.
