The Supreme Court might issue an order on Monday to reveal the names of journalists and media houses who received money from the government in the name of national security.
The document is yet to be verified by the Minister for Information, pending which it cannot be made public.
A two-judge bench comprising Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, which had taken up a set of petitions regarding media accountability initiated at the behest of some television anchors, was also informed that former prime minister Raja Parvez Ashraf had approved a summary sanctioning payment of over Rs1.32 billion for media campaigns.
On Wednesday, the information ministry submitted two sets of lists. It claimed privilege on the one containing itemised particulars of 155 expenditures under different heads like payment of Rs187,000 to a TV journalist for his boarding and lodging in a Bhurban hotel. The court was surprised by the ministry’s request for secrecy.
The ministry also pleaded that the list on which it had claimed confidentiality should also not be subject to audit mainly because the Auditor General of Pakistan would then raise objections for not adhering to the PPRA (Public Procurement Regulatory Authority).
Rejecting the argument as unreasonable, the court stated that the concept had been derived from the laws introduced by the colonial masters in 1782 in the name of Civil List and Secret Fund where a certification by an officer was enough for not getting any expenditure audited. Article 19A of the Constitution relating to freedom of information was also relied on by the Court to question the claims of the information ministry.
“The Auditor General is watchdog of the people and every penny of the nation should be audited, except where the state justifies that revelation could compromise security,” Justice Khawaja observed.
The petition had been filed by Absar Alam, a TV anchor, asking the court to order the ministry that its record be made public to avoid implicating innocent journalists.
The court ordered the information secretary, who is also principal accounting officer of the department, and his associate director Mohammad Tahir Hassan to certify the two lists to be authentic within this week. More time was sought by the counsel for the information ministry to provide the law supporting the claims of privacy.
