ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Courtroom, listening to a mysterious petition in search of regulation of media freedom, has framed 9 inquiries to be answered by a senior lawyer and an advocate on report (AoR) via respective affidavits explaining who had instructed and engaged them to file such plea.
“The submitting of CP No. 27 of 2022 has turn out to be a really severe matter; three of the six petitioners have utterly dissociated themselves from it,” mentioned a seven-page order issued after the Might 13 listening to of a problem by the Press Affiliation of the Supreme Courtroom (PAS) in opposition to “roving inquiries” by the Federal Investigation Company (FIA) and summons being issued by the joint investigation crew (JIT) on imprecise allegations of so-called express and malicious marketing campaign in opposition to the superior judiciary and its judges.
The SC order requested AoR Syed Rifaqat Hussain Shah and senior counsel Haider Waheed, beneath whose identify the petition was filed, to clarify who drafted the petition and the place, who printed it for submitting, who issued the requisite notices to the respondents on the time of submitting the petition, who paid their charges and the way, proof of dispatch of drafts via e mail, WhatsApp, courier or by different means, proof of communication with any of the petitioners, together with Advocate Qausain Faisal, and who paid the price, together with journey.
Underneath Order 1, Rule 2 of the Supreme Courtroom Guidelines, 1980, AoR is an advocate who’s entitled to behave within the Supreme Courtroom by pleading for a celebration, together with an appellant, respondent, plaintiff, defendant, and so forth.
Three out of six petitioners deny submitting plea in search of regulation of media freedom
The foundations recommend {that a} senior advocate or an AoR is entitled to seem and plead earlier than the Supreme Courtroom on signing his respective roll. No advocate can seem or plead in any matter except he/she is instructed by the AoR; apart from, each AoR earlier than appearing on behalf of any individual or get together will file within the courtroom registry an influence of lawyer within the prescribed kind authorising him to behave.
On April 2, the Supreme Courtroom had summoned six petitioners who had filed the petition in 2022 and later tried to withdraw it as a result of discrepancies within the submitting of the petition.
Three of the petitioners appeared earlier than the courtroom on Might 13 to disclaim the submitting of the petition. They have been Worldwide Human Rights Motion’s senior vice chairman Raja Sher Bilal from Chakwal, Wings Faculty Chakwal Principal Prof Abrar Ahmed and former president of District Bar Chakwal Advocate Mohammad Asif.
The courtroom order famous that the petitioners said their names had been misused as they’d neither instructed nor filed the petition. Subsequently, they have been proven their purported signatures on the ability of lawyer of AoR Ahmed Nawaz Chaudhry. However the three people defined that they didn’t signal the ability of lawyer nor they owned the signatures affixed within the doc.
After the demise of Ahmed Nawaz Chaudhry, the petitioners have been mentioned to interact the providers of Syed Rifaqat Hussain Shah as their AoR, however the three people additionally denied partaking him.
The order mentioned the unique CNICs of the three petitioners have been additionally seen by the courtroom to check their signatures with the ability of lawyer which didn’t match.
AoR Rifaqat Shah defined that the workplace of Haider Waheed had engaged him on behalf of those petitioners. However Mr Waheed denied this and said that he had by no means met any of the petitioners although communicated with solely one of many petitioners, particularly Advocate Qausain Faisal.
Printed in Daybreak, Might twenty second, 2024