ISLAMABAD: Sarina Isa, the wife of Justice Qazi Faez Isa, on Monday filed a review petition before the Supreme Court seeking review of its June 19 majority order requiring verification by tax authorities of three offshore properties in her and children’s name.

Along with the review petition, she also sought a stay saying that the Commissioner/Federal Board of Revenue were proceeding with indecent haste against her in complete disregard to the demise of her father and death threats to her husband. “They have not let the petitioner grieve about the loss in her life. They are not concerned about the death threats to her husband, and they are not waiting for the detailed reasons/judgement.

“They are single-mindedly pursuing the objective to deprive the petitioner of any legal remedy, including the constitutional right to file a review under Article 188,” argued the review petition moved in person.

This is the fourth such review petition after the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) moved the apex court seeking review of the paragraphs 3 to 11 in the majority judgement by seven judges.

The majority order through paragraphs 3 to 11 in the short order had quashed the reference but ordered the FBR chairman to furnish a report under his signatures to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) secretary containing details of the proceedings conducted by the FBR Inland Revenue Commissioner after seeking explanation from the wife and children of Justice Isa about the nature and source of the funds for the three properties in the United Kingdom.

On the receipt of the report, the SJC will determine to initiate any action/proceedings for the purposes of Article 209 of the Constitution, in its suo motu jurisdiction, the judgement had explained.

The review petition contended that the tax affairs of any private citizen were confidential. They neither impinge on the fundamental rights of other citizens nor were a matter of public importance, the petition said. The order, essentially, directed investigation of the tax liability of private citizens under the garb of public importance, the petition argued, adding this did not satisfy the requisite preconditions of breach of the fundamental rights and public importance that trigger Article 184(3) powers vested in the Supreme Court.

The review petition argued that the terms offshore assets and offshore evader were introduced for the first time by the Finance Act, 2019, published on June 30, 2019. The petitioner pleaded that she had declared the three offshore properties in her tax returns for the tax year 2018 and 2019, after the change of law requiring them to be so declared and has till date not received a single notice in respect of either tax year or in respect of her returns, let alone that she did not declare or under declared or provided inaccurate particulars, the petitioner contended.

The Supreme Court by issuing the June 19 order under Article 184(3) effectively created a class of persons and redefined the private and confidential affairs of individual citizens falling within such class as matters of ‘public importance’, the petition feared.

This class includes the spouses and children of judges, with their assets and liabilities being elevated to the status of public importance impinging on the fundamental rights of all citizens of Pakistan. The creation of such a class backed by a judicial order without any foundation in law may be seen to be invidious, the petition emphasised.

Within this class, the apex court’s treatment is discriminatory, as under Article 194 of the Constitution all judges of the superior courts take the same oath, under the Third Schedule, according to the petition. All judges of the superior courts abide by the same Code of Conduct, and their violation of the same is dealt with by the same forum, the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), under Article 209 of the Constitution.

However, the petition alleged, it was to the exclusion of all other members of this class, created by the SC under Article 184(3), that the petitioner and her children were being singled-out and targeted. She and her children are being made to explain their sources of income to the exclusion of the spouses and children of all presently 139 sitting chief justices and judges of the superior courts.

Only one individual judge of a class created by the Supreme Court was being dealt with in a manner completely different to the other members of the same class in a brazen violation of the right to equal protection and guarantee against discrimination under Article 25 of the Constitution, the petition alleged.

There was no basis to treat the petitioner any differently from the spouses of all other judges of the superior courts and the petitioner’s children from the children of all other judges of the superior courts, Ms Isa contended.

In the event that the SC decided that accountability of judges mandated accountability of their spouses, their children, including their assets as well and that the spouses and children of judges must present themselves before the FBR to obtain a character certificate of good legal and moral conduct, the obligation to do so could not attach to the petitioner and her children alone, the petition emphasised.

If a new obligation had been created for the petitioner due to her being the spouse of a SC judge, such obligation must be applied and enforced strictly across-the-board in relation to all members of this new class of judges’ spouses and children, according to the petition.

The petitioner said that before Imran Khan’s government again stooped to making false allegations, she wanted to clarify that she did not receive a single rupee for her time, money and effort, did not avail of any travel and daily allowance and did not publicise what she did. She was also not seeking gratitude or to be acknowledged, the petition said, adding she had lived a fully occupied life in Karachi, working, raising children and running a household, so when she accompanied her husband to Balochistan she used the opportunity to make peoples’ lives better.

She did not disclose to anyone what she did and probably would never have, but when there is no end to her persecution by the government, and people like Law Minister Farogh Naseem had the audacity to say that the petitioner should be grateful to receive benefits and would be entitled to get a pension when her husband died it was hypocrisy in the extreme, which needed to be addressed. What the petitioner did was nothing more than a wife of chief justice, governor, president, prime minister and those of the chiefs of the armed forces would do.

She alleged that she was being punished because she had not received a single benefit from her husband’s position, since she and her children bought the properties from their own money and were being asked about them.

However, the petition said it was ironic that Mr Khan who sought and got a plot from the government was not asked about it, but his government raised finger at the petitioner and spread lies. The petitioner was then thrown to the FBR controlled by the Khan government, she regretted.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2020