Employee’s complaint
ISLAMABAD: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has submitted before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that if the allegations contained in the writ petition of its employee, Malik Mukhtar Ahmad Shahzad, were pursued in an open court, it would have adverse effects on Pakistan's relations with numerous countries.
The IB has further stated in a written reply that the said writ petition was in fact asking the applicants, agency to expose the operational areas and targets, which were highly secretive and tantamount to demolishing the very basic structure of secrecy, which the agency had been able to develop until now. The bureau told the court that it was a settled principle of law that any documents,annexures submitted to the court would become public documents and would thus become easily obtainable.
It said entering into the controversy, alleged in the writ petition, would amount to exposing the secrecy and confidentiality of the department, which the agency respectfully claims is subject to privilege. Hence, the court may kindly refrain from delving into the details of the writ petition.
The IB is of point of viewthat the contents of writ petition and the annexures therewith were in utter violation of the terms and conditions, service rules, and practices of the Intelligence Bureau, as no functionary was permitted to retain any copies of the secret information reports that are submitted by them.
The IB has stated that the petitioner had already been issued a show cause notice. Since his initial appointment, the petitioner had been incessantly harassing the agency by filing numerous cases with various courts, and had as per our record, filed a total of 14 different cases uptil now against the agency.
According to written reply, the role, function and rules, supported with the superior courts’ judgments has also been discussed in the written reply submitted to the court on Friday last.
It has been stated that the very purpose and reason for creating an intelligence service like the IB was to work in secrecy and not publicly disclose their gathering of intelligence, analysis and their recommendations, otherwise the agency would be of no use either to the country or to the nation.
It said by mere filing of the writ petition by a functionary of the IB, the international press, particularly of a hostile country had already started a malicious media campaign against Pakistan’s agencies.
It said open proceedings would clearly be violative of Article 5, which enjoins loyalty to the state as a duty of every citizen, which in fact means the sovereignty and integrity of the state of Pakistan. About the secret roles of IB it has been stated that creation of the IB was a part of the Federal Legislative List in Item 1 of Part 1, which is connected with the Security of Pakistan.
Elaborating their point of view the letter, it said ever since his initial appointment, the petitioner has been incessantly harassing the agency by filing numerous cases with various courts, and has as per our record, filed a total of 14 different cases against the agency till now.
