ISLAMABAD: Amid calls for an inquiry into the leaked audio clip purportedly of former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar, the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), a premier legal body, passed a resolution on Wednesday demanding an independent inquiry commission to investigate the matter.

The inquiry commission should comprise a retired chief justice, a senior lawyer of great repute and a senior parliamentarian of impeccable character to inquire into recent allegations pertaining to audio and video recordings.

The former chief justice, however, has denied that the voice in the clip was his.

Signed by PBC Vice Chairman Khushdil Khan, the resolution regretted that the leaked audio clip of a conversation purportedly between Justice Saqib Nisar and an unidentified man regarding the conviction of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz has brought the independence of judiciary into question.

The PBC said the commission to be constituted should formulate its recommendations for appropriate actions against the responsible person by fixing responsibility for the delinquency to ensure fundamental rights of the people and to restore the confidence of the masses in the judicial system of the country.

On Tuesday, PML-N President and Leader of the Opposition Shehbaz Sharif had also asked the former chief justice to come clean adding that the audio clip showed how the former prime minister and his daughter had been targeted as part of the grand plot to keep them out of the political process.

The PBC also expressed grave concern over the price hike of daily commodities and said the same had become out of the reach of the common man.

The PBC said that increase in unemployment, worsening law and order situation and target killing of innocent people had become order of the day.

The council expressed strong reservations over the passage of 33 bills in a single day by the federal government without consensus of the opposition, severe conditions of the IMF imposed upon the government in respect of getting loans and continuous de-valuation of the Pakistani rupee.

The council also authorised the vice chairman of the PBC to convene a convention at Islamabad immediately and invite all stakeholders, including representatives of bar bodies, civil society, media persons and leaders of political parties to discuss all thorny issues being faced by the country.

The PBC also took serious exception to visits by judicial officers to various schools on the orders of superior authorities and said it was beyond the dignity and status of a judge and the judiciary and was also violative of the fundamental rights of the citizens of Pakistan.

The PBC demanded that this exercise should be brought to an end immediately.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2021