The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected all three pleas seeking an investigation into a cipher \u2014 presented by PTI Chairman Imran Khan in March 2022 as evidence of a \u201cforeign conspiracy\u201d to oust him.
\nJustice Qazi Faez Isa pronounced the verdict today after conducting an in-chamber hearing on pleas filed by Advocate Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta, Syed Tariq Badar and Advocate Naeemul Hasan last year.
\nThe petitions had sought the constitution of a \u201chigh-powered commission\u201d to probe the alleged \u201cforeign conspiracy\u201d that Imran claimed was hatched to topple his government.
\nThey had named the Federation of Pakistan through the law and justice secretary, the prime minister, and the cabinet secretary as respondents in the case.
\nHowever, the applications had been returned earlier over objections by the Registrar\u2019s Office. Subsequently, the petitioner filed fresh pleas in the court against these objections.
\nIt is a common practice of the court office to sometimes return petitions by raising objections like questioning why the petitioner has approached the apex court directly without exhausting other available forums first. Such rejections are usually challenged by the petitioners and are taken up by a judge in his chamber as nominated by the chief justice.
\nEarlier, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood recused himself from a hearing scheduled for Jan 24 and had sent the pleas back to the top judge.
\nThe hearing
\nAt the outset of today\u2019s hearing, Justice Isa asked: \u201cIs dealing with foreign affairs the job of the court? Did Imran Khan make any decision to investigate the matter as the prime minister?\u201d
\nHe added: \u201cImran Khan had all the powers to have an investigation conducted. All authorities are under the prime minister.\u201d
\nHe asked: \u201cWhat should the court do in the cipher\u2019s matter?\u201d
\nWhen the petitioner\u2019s counsel termed the investigations a \u201cmatter of fundamental rights\u201d, Justice Isa asked: \u201cWhat impact did the cipher have on your or my life? There is no matter of fundamental rights in this case.\u201d
\nHe further said: \u201cDo you want that the entire world\u2019s ciphers are sent to the Supreme Court instead of the foreign ministry? If there is any attack in the future, would the Supreme Court announce war?\u201d
\nAt one point during the hearing, Justice Isa said if the government wants, it can make public the ciphers, but if anyone else does it, it would be a violation of the [Officials] Secret Act.
\nHe further remarked: \u201cIf the prime minister wants, he can use his authority to end relations with the world.\u201d
\nJustice Isa said, \u201cIf someone is not even eligible to become the prime minister, there is a remedy for this as well. Whoever\u2019s job it is, let them do it. The judiciary cannot interfere in the executive\u2019s matters.\u201d
\nUpon the petitioner\u2019s lawyer saying that the \u201ccourt has to see who is doing what\u201d, the judge said that \u201celders have forbidden me from seeing anything\u201d.
\nCablegate
\nThe controversy surrounding the no-confidence motion against Imran took a dramatic turn when the embattled former premier brandished a letter at a rally on March 27 \u2014 days before his ouster \u2014 claiming it contained evidence of a \u201cforeign conspiracy\u201d hatched to topple his government.
\nImran had kept mum about the contents of the letter when he first unveiled it but he spilled the beans days later by naming the United States when the exit of his government appeared imminent.
\nImran\u2019s allegation that the US spearheaded his exit from power was based on a cipher received from Pakistan\u2019s Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed, in which the envoy had reported about a meeting with Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Affairs Donald Lu.
\nMajeed had reportedly said that Donald Lu warned that Imran Khan\u2019s continuation in office, who was set to face a vote of no confidence, would have repercussions on bilateral relations.
\nThe US was said to be annoyed with Imran over his \u201cindependent foreign policy\u201d and visit to Moscow.
\nThe Pentagon and the State Department have repeatedly rejected the accusations, saying there was no veracity to them.
\nThe National Security Committee (NSC), which includes all services chiefs as well as the head of Pakistan\u2019s top intelligence agency, took up the matter on March 31 with then-premier Imran in the chair. The forum decided to issue a \u201cstrong demarche\u201d to a country that it did not name over what it termed as \u201cblatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan\u201d.
\nIt had also termed the interference \u201cunacceptable under any circumstances\u201d and said the language used in the communique was undiplomatic.
\nWhile the forum had stopped short of calling the interference a conspiracy at the time, another meeting of the NSC was held on April 22 with newly elected premier Shehbaz Sharif in the chair, and which included the same military chiefs who attended the March 31 session.
\nDuring its second meeting, the NSC statement said it \u201creaffirmed the decisions of the last NSC meeting\u201d and explicitly went on to add that it found no evidence of a foreign conspiracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected all three pleas seeking an investigation into a cipher \u2014 presented by PTI Chairman Imran Khan in March 2022…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4971,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}