SC’s bat verdict: JIT constituted to probe campaign against judiciary

ISLAMABAD: The caretaker government on Tuesday constituted a joint investigation team (JIT) to investigate a campaign reportedly launched against the judiciary following the Supreme Court’s (SC) verdict that upheld the Dec 22 decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) depriving PTI of its iconic symbol — ‘bat’, ARY News reported.

According to a notification – a copy of which is available with ARY News, the federal government constituted a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) in terms of Section 30 of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016.

Additional Director General (Cyber Crime Wing) FIA would be the Convener of the committee, which comprises representatives of Intelligence Bureau (IB), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and DIG Islamabad Police.

The JIT would ascertain facts behind “malicious social media campaign” attempting to malign the image of Judges of the Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan.

It has been also directed to identify and bring the culprits to book in accordance with relevant laws and cause presentation of challans in the concerned courts. The team would also be authorised to recommend measures for prevention against occurrence of such incidents in future.

The caretaker government has directed the JIT to submit a “preliminary report” to Ministry of Interior within 15 days.

The development came after CJP Qazi Faez Isa-led three-member bench announced the verdict, dealing a huge blow to Imran Khan-led PTI’s hopes of retaining its symbol.

As a result, the PTI candidates will now be contesting the elections independently with different electoral symbols while the party no longer has the right to reserved seats for women and minorities.

Supreme Court order

Announcing the verdict, CJP Faez Isa stated that the plea in Peshawar High Court (PHC) was inadmissible as a single case cannot proceed in two High Courts at the same time.

The verdict said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) failed to present evidence of holding transparent intra-party elections as all political parties are bound to hold free and fair intra-party elections.

The chief justice said the ECP “has been calling upon the PTI to hold its intra-party elections since May 24, 2021 and at that time the PTI was in the federal government and in some provinces.”

“Therefore, it cannot be stated that ECP was victimising PTI. Nonetheless we wanted to satisfy ourselves that the ECP had not acted mala fide of ulterior reason or that PTI was discriminated against; it transpired that ECP had passed orders against 13 other registered political parties which were far more severe than the order passed against PTI,” the order stated.

The order noted “one such case of All Pakistan Muslim League came before this court on Jan 12, 2024 and the order of the ECP delisting the said political party was upheld.”

It added that the “ECP wanted to ensure that the PTI holds intra-party elections for mere production of a certificate stating that such elections were held would not suffice to establish that intra-party elections had been held when a challenge was thrown to such an assertion; nor in our opinion should ECP concerned itself with minor irregularities in the holding of political parties’ elections.”