Islamabad, Dec 15 (PTI) Hearing a case filed by a sacked high court judge about his dismissal from service in 2018, Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to former ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed to explain his position but spared ex-Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Former Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui was sacked by President Arif Alvi in 2018 after a high-level constitutional body recommended his removal for making a scathing speech against the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s top spy agency.
While addressing the Rawalpindi District Bar Association on July 21, 2018, Siddiqui alleged that the ISI was manipulating judicial proceedings to constitute a panel of judges to get favourable decisions.
A five-member larger bench of the court led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa while hearing the case issued notice to Hameed and three others but refused to notify Bajwa with observation that he had prime facie nothing to do with the case.
Siddiqui on Thursday submitted a plea to the court to make Bajwa, Hameed, and four others a party to the case. The others include former brigadiers Irfan Ramay and Faisal Marwat, former IHC chief justice Anwar Kasi and former IHC registrar Arbab Arif.
The court also refused to issue notices to Ramay, Kasi, and Arif, saying that they were not related to the case. Later, the court adjourned the hearing without fixing a date for the next hearing.
When the five-member bench of the court, led by Chief Justice Isa, took up Siddiqui’s case for hearing on Thursday, he had observed that Siddiqui should make those persons as respondents to the case who he claimed approached him to influence a favourable outcome in a case.
Lt Gen Hameed was the Director General of the ISI between 2019 and 2021 and was the head of the ISI’s Counter Intelligence Wing from January 2017 to April 2019 when Siddiqui was sacked in 2018.
Siddiqui made headlines in 2018 due to his controversial speech targeting the ISI. However, he soon found himself in hot waters and was removed in the same year by the Supreme Judicial Council following complaints that he was guilty of misconduct.
He challenged his removal from office, but the hearing was delayed. The case was last taken up for hearing in June 2022. In November this year, Siddiqui filed an application for an early hearing of his petition, which he claimed had been pending since October 2018.
In his original plea, Siddiqui had requested to cancel the dismissal notification issued against him as a judge. PTI SH NPK AKJ NPK NPK
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