Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Mystery still shrouds who is behind the bounced news, which remained in circulation on Friday and Saturday, claiming that National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had filed a reference against Supreme Court’s Justice Asif Saeed Khosa with the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC).

National media kicked up a storm on late Friday and Saturday after it was reported that National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had filed a complaint against Justice Asif Saeed Khosa with the SJC, alleging that the judge had violated the sanctity of the speaker’s office. Earlier, it was claimed that a reference had been filed with the SJC, but it was later reported that a reference was in the midst of being prepared. However, the offices of speaker and the attorney general refused to comment on the matter, saying they had no knowledge whether any such complaint was filed or was yet to be filed.

The ‘reference’, as it was reported in the media, was filed on the basis of a section of Justice Khosa’s April 20, 2017, judgement in the Panama Papers case, in which he had observed that the speaker had failed to file a reference against the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Justice Khosa had been most strongly critical of the Sharif family’s practices in his judgement. He had also criticised state institutions for either refusing or failing to take action against the then prime minister.

The paragraph in question from Justice Khosa’s judgement reads as follows: “It is practically he (the chief executive of the federation) who appoints the heads of all the institutions in the country, which could have inquired into or investigated the allegations levelled against respondent No 1 (Nawaz Sharif) and his family on the basis of the Panama Papers. Even the speaker of the National Assembly who could refer the matter to the ECP belongs to his political party and is his nominee.”

“These petitions had been entertained by this court in the backdrop of an unfortunate refusal/failure on part of all the relevant institutions in the country … to inquire into or investigate the matter or to refer the matter to the ECP against respondent No 1 (Nawaz Sharif).”

According to the copies of the ‘reference’, the speaker had allegedly complained that Justice Khosa’s labelling of him as a ‘nominee’ or loyalist of the prime minister was a misstatement and contrary to the facts, and it was also tantamount to disparagement and breach of privilege of the august house of the National Assembly comprising 342 members and the speaker elected by those members as custodian of the House.

In the document, the speaker was also quoted as taking strong exception to the judge’s observation that the former ‘failed’ to file a reference against the prime minister, rebuking it by saying that “the office of the speaker is not an investigating agency”.

The reference used unusually harsh language against Justice Khosa, including the statement that the honourable judge ‘miserably failed to comprehend and appreciate’ the speaker’s powers under the constitution; that he ‘is either totally ignorant of the provisions of the constitution or he has been prejudiced by his pre-inclination to condemn the constitutional offices of the state’; and that the judge’s continuation in office would give him ‘further opportunity to write such biased, ill-founded and disputed judgements’.

Published in Daily Times, August 20^th , 2017.