Pakistan's Supreme Court: Commission of Inquiry into Audio Leaks Has Not Met for Over a Year

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court, in a written order in the audio leaks case, has regretted that no fresh date has been fixed for hearing of a three-member commission of inquiry set up to examine the veracity of the audio leaks after its last hearing on May 27, 2023.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Aminuddin Khan, hearing the government's appeal against the Islamabad High Court's June 25 order on the petitions filed by Bushra Bibi and Najamus Saqib, son of former Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar, issued a five-page order after hearing the case on Monday.

The order recalled that the Commission of Inquiry set up by the government and headed by Justice Isa had started its work on May 22, but the Supreme Court stayed it on May 26. The Commission then adjourned its further proceedings pending the decision on the petitions against its establishment.

The Commission of Inquiry into Audio Leakage was constituted under Section 3 of the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act 2017 and also comprised of the then Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court Aamer Farooq.

Government-appointed body suspended its work until petitions against its establishment were decided

The commission should investigate the credibility of the audio leaks allegedly concerning the judiciary, conversations of former Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi with lawyers about a former Supreme Court judge and fixing of some cases in a particular court, with Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, between former CJP Saqib Nisar and senior advocate Khawaja Tariq Rahim about the outcome of a case (arrest of Imran Khan on May 9 from Supreme Court premises in Islamabad) in a particular Supreme Court court, between former Prime Minister and his party colleague about their links with the Supreme Court, between former CJP’s mother-in-law and lawyer’s wife about cases in the Supreme Court and hope of unconstitutional rule, between former CJP’s son and his friend Abuzar mentioning his father in a political role, etc.

The five-page order recalled how Deputy Attorney General (AAG) Chaudhry Aamir Rehman argued that the jurisdiction exercised by the Supreme Court went beyond the scope of Article 199 of the Constitution and cited previous Supreme Court judgments such as Sadiq Poultry (Pvt) Ltd of 2023 and Jahanzaib Malik of 2018 in support of this to hold that the powers used by the Supreme Court were self-exercisable and could not be exercised by the High Court in the light of the judgments.

The AAG argued that the five questions framed by the Supreme Court on May 31, 2023, were not based on the arguments of any of the parties, but the court had framed the questions itself, which was against the mandate of Article 199 of the Constitution. He argued that the Supreme Court, while hearing a matter under Article 199, does not have the power to conduct a comprehensive inquiry which requires fact-finding and, moreover, it is an inquiry.

The AAG recalled that the fundamental petition before the Supreme Court was the proceedings initiated by the committee appointed by the then NA Speaker, but the proceedings ended with the dissolution of the then National Assembly on August 9, 2023. Thereafter, there was no need to pursue the petition filed by Mian Najamus Saqib.

The order states that even the Supreme Court did not bother to appreciate the stand taken by Bushra Bibi in her petition regarding the audio leaks, which insisted that the audio leaks were faked and manipulated by cutting, cannibalising and splicing together parts of the conversation to convey false and inaccurate manipulations.

“The (Supreme) Court was obliged to first examine the veracity of this fact and then proceed with the matter,” the Supreme Court’s five-page order said.

Consequently, the Supreme Court granted permission to consider the highlighted points and informed the respondents that the Supreme Court order would be stayed and further proceedings would be quashed. When the AAG urged the Supreme Court to stay the Supreme Court's interim order dated May 29, 2024, the Supreme Court observed that the order was not extended by the Supreme Court in its next hearing on June 25 and hence there was no ground for its stay.

Published in Dawn, 21 August 2024