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Friday March 29, 2024

JC didn’t let many controversies raise their head: SM Zafar

ISLAMABAD: A prominent legal practitioner S M Zafar on Sunday opined that if the Judicial Commission (JC) had constituted an investigative team comprising officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) to probe the allegations of rigging in 2013 elections, many new controversies would have

By our correspondents
July 27, 2015
ISLAMABAD: A prominent legal practitioner S M Zafar on Sunday opined that if the Judicial Commission (JC) had constituted an investigative team comprising officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) to probe the allegations of rigging in 2013 elections, many new controversies would have raised their heads, making the process more complicated in legal terms.
Talking to The News, he said the political opponents were so far leveling allegations against one another but if any investigative team comprising officials from security institutions was formed, they could also have found themselves in the middle of the blame game.
“As far as my personal opinion is concerned, the Judicial Commission treated it as a civil case in which conclusion of the report entirely depends upon the witnesses and evidence,” he said.He said if the Judicial Commission had treated it as a criminal case, it could form the investigative team consisting of officials from the state institutions who would probe the allegations and then submit their report.
S M Zafar said constitution of any investigative team to probe the rigging allegations could have complicated the situation because the stakeholders might have started accusing its members as targeted, biased or blue-eyed. He said the members of the Judicial Commission showed a great level of maturity and handled the issue with grace and transparency due to which no one showed reservations against their objectivity.
“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan himself showed satisfaction over the members of the Judicial Commission and stated he is proud of them,” he said. To a question, he said the burden of proof rested with the PTI Chairman Imran Khan who made very tall claims while standing atop his container during the 126-day long protest sit-in at the D-Chowk.
It is pertinent to mention here that PTI Chairman Imran Khan during the protest sit-in leveled 240 allegations against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; 367 against Geo-Jang Group; 115 against former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry; 66 against Najam Sethi; 12 against Justice (retd) Riaz Kiyani; 9 against Justice (retd) Ramday; and 6 against former Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim. He said Imran Khan failed to provide satisfactory evidence before the Inquiry Commission in favour of his claims due to which he did not achieve anything big out of the report.