ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday observed that there was no proof to establish Justice Qazi Faez Isa’s wife and children as his dependents.
These remarks were issued by Justice Sajjad Ali Shah as the apex court resumed the hearing of petitions filed against the presidential reference lodged against the SC judge for allegedly hiding foreign assets of his family members.
Reading out the contents of the reference, Justice Isa’s counsel, Muneer A Malik, said that the government did not allege that these are benami properties. “The government has only alleged that Justice Isa has violated tax law and did not disclose assets of his spouse in his wealth statement. There has been a calculated media trial against the SC judge by leaking information related to the reference with the media,” he added.
Justice Yahya Afridi asked whether Justice Isa was issued any notice by the Federal Board of Revenue for not declaring three foreign properties.
To which, Justice Shah replied that it is not yet established how the complainant got the addresses of the foreign properties of the SC judge. “It was an unauthorised investigation in this matter,” he added.
Malik claimed that the information pertaining to the foreign properties was gathered through surveillance, but Justice Muneeb Akhtar said that there was insufficient evidence to establish this claim.
He also asked the counsel for the SC judge if his client had gone abroad in the recent past and had stayed there. “It is not a case of ordinary litigant but a matter related to a fellow judge. The entire SC is under trial. We want to find out how and why the SC is on a trial,” he added.
Meanwhile, counsel for superior bars, Hamid Khan, requested the court to adjourn the case until next week because of the annual elections of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and the difficulties lawyers were facing in reaching SC because of the impending anti-government protests.
The hearing however was later adjourned until October 29.
