Islamabad:
The High Court of Islamabad (IHC) has initiated an outrage procedure against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his entire cabinet for ignoring his order for providing reasons for not having helped an American court hearing the imprisoned neuroscientist case, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui.
“As the government has not returned with the reasons despite the fact that it was to do so, it is in contempt, leaving me no choice but to issue a opinion of contempt to the federal government.
“The office is responsible for initiating a petition for outrage accordingly, in which all members of the federal government will be responded. The responses of all ministers, including the Prime Minister, will be filed within two weeks from today,” said three -page order written by judge Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan.
The judge noted that in his last ordinance, he had given the government time to return with his decision, while warning the head of the law of the State that the inaction would lead to an outrage procedure.
The federal government, on July 15, approached the Supreme Court, seeking to cancel the order of May 16, 2025 of the IHC which allowed the modifications of a previously regulated petition concerning Dr. Aafia Siddiqui – almost a decade after its deposit. The SC, however, has not yet listed the petition to hear.
Judge Ejaz Ishaq Khan was to go on summer vacation from Monday, July 21. However, he announced during the last hearing that he would hear the case on July 21.
Interestingly, the IHC did not list the case to hear in front of its bench. The judge, however, heard the case on Monday and then rendered a stock market order, criticizing the chief judge of the IHC, Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar, and the whole “the demolition team catapulted” the IHC after the 26th amendment.
Judge Khan noted that the holiday calendar had been announced much earlier on the date on which he had condemned to register this case today, given its importance and the need for a rapidly justice exemption
“Thursday or maybe Friday, I was informed by my PS [personal secretary] By the office that the list of causes will only be published if the list of judges in office for this week has been modified with the authorization of the chief judge.
“It seemed to me an insignificant case and I asked my PS to move a request accordingly. I was informed on Saturday that the request was duly moved, but that the file remained on the table of the chief judge, which did not even find 30 seconds to sign it.
“Whether by design or surveillance, I cannot say it with certainty, but taking into account the way in which the list of judges was used as a tool for the desired result in specific cases, and given the strong opposition of the government to do what is right and to stay close to the nation girl at the first of the motion before an American courtyard, I can be forgiven to have thought that it was the first.”
He said the government had appealed to the Supreme Court against its previous decision authorizing the amendments to the request to continue this case, but the SC did not take over the case.
“”[So] The machinations of the executive appeared elsewhere, in the form of controlling the procedures of this court through its list.
“Legal historians would write that now, even if it wishes due to urgent justice imperatives, a judge is no longer authorized to hold the court by the high court when he is on leave.”
He said that the correct legal position is that the office cannot use the CJ shoulder in the exercise of administrative powers to obstruct the legal proceedings ordered by a judge.
He said that the motivation of a judge to hold the court one day he was officially “on leave would explain if the reason to hold the court was a last reason or the exemption from justice.
“I hope that men and women are well thought out with me that today my decision to hold the court was only and exclusively for the purpose of the exemption from justice.
He said that it was the time when a judge could transmit an order even by playing golf or dining with his family, if the requirement required. The dresses ceremony and a courtroom – or the subside banality of a list of cause as in this case have never been the essential conditions for him to lead judicial affairs.
“This is another example of the Conroche of the administrative power to manage the exercise of the independent judicial authority, with the probable motivation to place (until the end of my leave) the government’s response with reasons for which it would not sign the memory of AMICUS.
“However, the imperatives of justice will not be defeated by such means. The bench will resume hearing the case on September 1.