ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday took suo motu notice of a video clip containing derogatory, contemptuous and scandalous language against the institution of judiciary and judges and fixed the case for hearing on Friday (today).

The video clip of Agha Iftikharuddin Mirza has gone viral on social media and created ripples in political, legal and civil society circles. This is the same video clip on the basis of which the wife of Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court, lodged a complaint with the Secretariat police station in Islamabad on June 24, saying the life of her family was in danger as they were receiving threats of dire consequences.

Justice Isa faced a presidential reference on misconduct, but a 10-judge bench of the Supreme Court on June 20 quashed it. However, the apex court directed the Federal Board of Revenue to continue with its proceedings in three offshore properties owned by the wife and children of the judge.

In her application, Mrs Isa alleged that the person — Agha Iftikharuddin Mirza — had said that her husband be shot publicly.

Video clip of a speaker containing derogatory, contemptuous language against judiciary, judges goes viral on social media

Justice Isa’s wife said that many powerful people were not happy with her husband and she suspected that this death threat to “my husband is in continuation of what we have been facing”.

She said that earlier a complaint was submitted by one Abdul Waheed Dogar against her husband, adding that her husband asked who the person was but no one in government disclosed who Mr Dogar worked for.

Mirza Shahzad Akbar, chairman of the Asset Recovery Unit (ARU) who has his office in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, had met Mr Dogar, “so please contact him to find out about Mr Dogar, who is being used by some very powerful people”, she said in her complaint.

She expressed her apprehensions that whoever had ordered journalist Ahmad Noorani to be beaten up was the real mastermind who now wants to eliminate her husband. Abdul Waheed Dogar lied about Ahmad Noorani and led police away from the real culprits on this person’s behest, she alleged.

“My father is very seriously ill and today is the first day I have stepped out of the house. I do not want to also lose my husband,” the complainant stated.

Threatening to murder a judge of the Supreme Court is the worst kind of terrorism, she said, adding many powerful people want to get rid of her husband and it is a duty of police to find out who they are and then arrest them.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2020