By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday said his government will withdraw a case against a senior Supreme Court judge, calling it baseless and politically motivated.
Justice Qazi Faez Isa — the senior-most judge after the Chief Justice — has been facing challenges since the government of former prime minister Imran Khan filed a case, called reference, against him in May 2019 for allegedly not disclosing assets owned by his family in London.
PM Sharif tweeted that he had directed Law Minister Azam Nazir Tarar to withdraw the curative review reference filed against Justice Qazi Isa, observing that the action was taken by the previous government on “flimsy” and “baseless” grounds.
“On my direction, the government has decided to withdraw the Curative Review Petition against the senior-most Judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Qazi Faez Isa. The Curative Review was based on ill-will & meant to harass & intimidate the honourable Judge at the behest of Imran Niazi.”
Sharif said a decision had already been taken by the cabinet last year.
Separately, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement that PM Sharif stated that Justice Isa and his family were “harassed and defamed” in the name of the reference.
“This was not a reference, but a vendetta by Imran Khan Niazi, a vindictive person, against a fair-minded judge who followed the path of the Constitution and the law,” the statement quoted Sharif as saying.
He maintained that the reference was a nefarious conspiracy to divide the independence of the judiciary, recalling that the PML-N and allied parties had condemned the move even when they were in the opposition.
“Imran Niazi misused the constitutional office of the president for this criminal act and President Arif Alvi became an instrument in the attack on the judiciary and an accomplice to a lie.”
The reference was filed after Justice Isa issued a scathing judgment against the army in a case about the siege of Islamabad by an extremist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party.
The legal fraternity went up in arms and announced protest if the judge was de-seated and a 10-member apex court bench threw out the reference on June 19, 2020.
However, seven of the 10 judges on the bench ordered the Inland Revenue Department and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to seek explanations from the judge’s wife and children on the nature and source of funding for three properties in their names in the UK.
Later in 2021, Justice Isa won a case which set aside the SC’s aforementioned directive after which the entire exercise conducted by the FBR was rendered null and void.
Khan’s government, later, instituted a curative review later on, which was still pending before the Supreme Court.
Justice Isa is in line to become the chief justice in September this year.
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