Faizabad Dharna: Pemra files plea to withdraw review petition against court’s judgment

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), on Wednesday, filed an application in the Supreme Court to withdraw its review petition against the court’s judgment on Faizabad Dharna.

A day ago the Intelligence Bureau (IB) also filed an application to withdraw its review petition against the SC verdict on February 6, 2019.

A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and comprising Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Athar Minallah will hear the petitions of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Military Intelligence (MI), and Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), media wing of army, PTI, MQM-P, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Pemra, and the Defence Ministry, on Thursday (today).

The SC judgment has directed the intelligence agencies and the ISPR not to exceed their constitutional mandates.

The pleas were not taken up during the tenures of the last three chief justices, namely, Asif Saeed Khosa, Gulzar Ahmed, and Umar Ata Bandial.

Justice Isa, in his 2019 Faizabad Dharna judgment, had written that the Constitution emphatically prohibited members of the armed forces from engaging in any kind of political activity, which included supporting a political party, faction or individual.

“The government of Pakistan through the Ministry of Defence and the respective chiefs of the army, the navy and the air force are directed to initiate action against the personnel under their command who are found to have violated their oath,” read the 43-page verdict authored by incumbent CJP Isa.

CJ Isa in his Faizabad Dharna judgment had held that no one, including any government, department or intelligence agency, could curtail the fundamental right of freedom of speech, expression and press beyond the parameters mentioned in Article 19 of the Constitution.

He ruled that those who resorted to such tactics under the mistaken belief that they served some higher goal deluded themselves.

“Pakistan is governed by the Constitution… Obedience to the Constitution and the law is the inviolable obligation of every citizen wherever he may be and of every other person for the time being in Pakistan,” he wrote in his verdict.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023