Justice Qazi Faez Isa says he has declined to be ATCs monitoring judge

ISLAMABAD: Justice Qazi Faez Isa on Monday said that he was not acting as the monitoring judge for the anti-terrorism courts (ATCs).

In a clarification issued here, Farrukh Malik, senior private secretary to Justice Qazi Faez Isa, said: “It is clarified that Justice Isa has declined to act as the monitoring judge for the Anti-Terrorism Courts.”

The written statement said that ‘The News International’ published a story on the front page of the newspaper on Feb 24, 2022, mentioning Justice Faez Isa as the monitoring judge for the anti-terror courts (ATCs), and that the impression of divide was fading.

The story mentioned undisclosed sources as having said that Justice Isa had again started joining brother judges in the tearoom and that there had been ‘ice breaking and judges’ division impression fading out completely’.

The clarification said: “Your story incorrectly suggests that Justice Isa has not been going to the Judges tearoom on account of some disagreement. Justice Isa did not once go to the Judges tearoom and also did not socialise with the colleagues in any private function throughout the duration of the hearing of his own case in the Supreme Court.

“After the order was announced on 26 April 2021, only then did he resume visiting the tearoom,” added the statement. “It is baffling why your newspaper would announce this after ten months and then attribute Justice Isa’s ethical conduct to imagined division,” said the clarification.