Thus far, the scandal allegedly involving Chief Justice's son and a real estate tycoon has informed us that the conspiracy had been planned. There also reportedly exists evidence, however circumstantial, about how the plan had been put in execution. The plan was as nefarious as it appeared to be genius for it was clearly aimed at maligning and browbeating Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in order to extract some kind of 'relief' for real estate tycoon Malik Riaz. Fortunately, however, not only has that conspiracy failed miserably, it has contributed to raising the image and stature of higher judiciary. The two-member bench of the Supreme Court has disposed of the suo motu notice the chief justice had taken himself as rumours swelled alleging his son Dr Arsalan Iftikhar having richly benefited in return for securing favorable verdicts in myriad court cases involving the real estate tycoon. Given that the issue presented before the court is not of 'public importance with reference to enforcement of Fundamental Rights' to have invited the apex court notice under Article 184(3) any further action lies with other forums. On the face of it, it's now at best a case of civil transaction between two parties over one of the party's failure to honour its commitment. How and at what forum that case would be tried and decided the task has been assigned to the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP). The question whether Arsalan Iftikhar win exoneration cannot be answered at this point in time. But the trial would be thorough and guilty duly punished, for the bench wants to ensure that "all those who may have committed any illegal acts including Malik Riaz, his son-in-law and Dr Arsalan Iftikhar are pursued and brought to book with full force and rigors of law". If the Chief Justice of Pakistan took prompt cognisance and initiated suo motu proceedings for the government to decide how and where to initiate the case isn't so easy. Of course, the apex court bench did mention the legal provisions that help identify the forum for trial - that involved parties were liable to be punished under the Pakistan Penal Code sections 163 (illegal gratification using personal influence over public servant), section 383 (extortion) and sections 415 and 420 (cheating), and section 9 of the National Accountability Ordinance. The AGP would like the two sides to go for a settlement themselves or enter into a plea bargaining agreement. The NAB chairman thinks the case is beyond the jurisdiction of his department as it is not about the misuse of public money. So there has to be somebody to trigger initiation for investigation and trial by filing the First Information Report (FIR) but that somebody isn't there in sight yet. In fact, Malik Riaz apparently never thought of going for a police case to 'recover' his money lost in his gamble; it looks in hindsight that he had nefarious objectives by making public his 'deal' with Arsalan but lost his marbles during his very appearance before the court where he quite unambiguously cleared Chief Justice Chaudhry of any kind of blemish. Even if the case centered upon alleged peccadilloes of the Chief Justice's son, it has been removed from the centre stage but the dust it raised would take time to settle. In the meanwhile, the people in general and media in particular have to do some serious soul searching as how to sift the grain from chaff when rumors are aired to scandalise the high offices. The anchorpersons who were shown 'documents' by Malik Riaz in support of his allegations against Dr Arsalan Iftikhar have, of course, quiet smartly wriggled out of the imbroglio by reframing their 'perceptions' as presented before the Supreme Court, the question however remains as to why it took them that long to go public with kind of belly-bursting exclusives that they got from the property tycoon. As fate would have it, before any tangible recovery could be made on what was under danger of being lost on the media front one of the leading TV channels fiasco has thrown that issue of journalistic ethics and integrity under sharper limelight. We as media men and media houses have to shun this gladiatorial image and do our work with total detachedness strictly in accordance with cardinal principle of journalism - objectivity. Given our present socio-political ambience when the media have acquired a critical position in forging public opinion the imperative for it to remain objective, neutral and impartial is no less critical.
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