IHC dismisses bid to halt Zafar’s probe into Tareen

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking to stop Barrister Ali Zafar from probing the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) cases on Jahangir Tareen and declared the case as non-maintainable.

It comes a day after a lawmaker loyal to Tareen — Raja Riaz — claimed Zafar had completed his investigation into the matter and had given the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader a “clean chit”.

Dismissing the plea, Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah lamented about the petitions people file to waste the court’s time. Thousands of cases were already pending with the IHC, Justice Minallah observed.

The petition was filed by a citizen, Fahad Shahid. At the outset of hearing, the IHC Chief Justice instructed the Deputy Attorney-General (DAG) Tayyab Shah to assist the bench regarding the case after studying it. The DAG said the petitioner was not an affected party and an irrelevant person could not file a case in criminal matters. The DAG recommended the court “should not hear such strange and irrelevant cases”.

The IHC Chief Justice remarked that criminal proceedings were ongoing in Lahore which did not fall under the IHC’s jurisdiction. “How can common litigants get justice if such types of petitions are filed?” After this, the court dismissed the case declaring it non-maintainable.