Daily Times

The federal cabinet on Monday dismissed the criticism directed at the government over the filing of references against judges of superior courts in the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), saying that there were no holy cows in any department, and that the government would continue to pursue uniform justice for all.

This was revealed by Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan during a post-cabinet meeting news conference.

Firdous said the law minister briefed the cabinet in detail regarding the complaints forwarded to the SJC against the judges, which she observed had become a daily story for discussion in the media over the last few days.

After learning of the facts, Prime Minister Imran expressed the resolve that “no one is above the law”, Firdous revealed. She said the ruling PTI had come into power with a mandate to ensure uniform justice in the country and on a slogan of “not two but one Pakistan”.

The minister stressed that the government was talking about the rule of law and whenever it believed that citizens, “no matter which department they belonged to”, conducted an activity outside the ambit of the law and constitution, the law would come into force and “there will be no compromise on that”. She said the government wanted to change the rotten system.

“It cannot happen that Imran Khan, while comprising on his political interests, becomes part of the status quo and shuts his eyes to what is happening in order to prevent difficulties rising against him,” she said.

Recalling the chain of events behind the filing of the references, Firdous said the head of Asset Recovery Unit, Shehzad Akbar, had received a complaint about the assets of judges and after verification he sent a summary to the prime minister, who forwarded it to the president for his approval of the reference. The assets, she said, were verified by the land registry in the United Kingdom and the documents were endorsed by Pakistan’s High Commission there as well. She said the discussion in media on the matter was inappropriate. Prime Minister Imran Khan had led the movement for restoration of judiciary and even went to jail for it, she added. The special assistant said the Supreme Judicial Council would decide whether the information provided to it was credible. “As the judiciary is looking into the complaint, it can’t be considered an attack on judiciary.” Firdous said the government would accept the SJC’s decision and condemned the opposition for shedding crocodile tears on the matter. The government had adopted the path given in the constitution made by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and did not deviate from it, she noted. She said there could not be a sacred cow in any institution. She advised the media to let Supreme Judicial Council take its decision and avoid discussion on the references till then.

The special assistant said the cabinet was briefed on the damages to the wheat crop caused by untimely rains and thunderstorms. “Due to heavy rains, about 1.3 million tonnes of wheat crop had been damaged. Despite the loss, the total wheat production this year would be 24.3 million tonnes, which along with the last year’s stocks of 3.7 million tonnes would be enough to meet the needs of the country.”

She said the cabinet was told that during the tenure of present government, farmers received good support price for the crops of rice, sugarcane and wheat.

She said the cabinet expressed concern over the fact that the purchase of wheat by the government had not started in Sindh, while a big scandal in that regard had also surfaced in the province. She said the cabinet also approved the Cash Management and Treasury Single Account Policy 2019 with the aim to effectively manage the cash and loans of the government. Till now there was no policy regarding cash held by the government, and there was no method for proper invoicing, she said. “After the cabinet’s approval, trillions of rupees held by departments for getting interest would be available in a central pool and information about the cash flow of the government would be transparent and visible and could be shared with the public.” She said the report regarding implementation of this policy would be presented to the cabinet, which in principle had approved the public finance management bill. She said the cabinet approved that for one time the visas of Chinese experts and professionals working on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project would be changed from visit to work visas.