ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday issued notices to the federation in a petition filed against a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the National Accountability Court (NAB) and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq heard the petition and issued notices to other respondents including secretaries of Defence, Law and Justice, and Foreign Affairs.
The bench also directed the deputy attorney general (DAG) to inform the court in this matter after taking directions from the government, and deferred the proceedings until February 11.
The petitioner, Muhammad Tahir, moved the IHC through Tariq Asad, and cited Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Federation through Secretary Ministry of Defence, Secretary Ministry of Law and Justice, and Secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs as respondents.
The petition states that reportedly a meeting of the federal cabinet was held on 29-12-2020, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan, in which besides other matters, the federal cabinet approved signing of a MoU between the NAB and the FBI.
He mentioned that it was reported that the Human Rights Minister, Shireen Mazari, opposed the move, and said that the MoU move would open a political Pandora’s box but the federal cabinet bulldozed the dissenting opinion of the human rights minister and approved the signing of MoU between the anti-graft watchdog and the FBI.
He said that the MoU would pave the way for the FBI in Pakistan.
The petitioner further said that reportedly out of 28 cabinet members, 14 voted in favour of the MoU, and 13 did not vote, whereas, Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari vehemently opposed the MoU but her opinion was rejected meaning thereby that 13 were not in its favour.
The counsel maintained that beyond any doubt, Pakistan has the most competent intelligence agencies, the ISI being at the top, then why we are dependent upon the intelligence agencies of other country’s particularly the US intelligence agency.
The US has been the friends of Pakistan’s enemy.
They are the same creed who had killed over 25 million Muslims in Spain – Queen Isabella and Ferdinand who had formulated theory of discovery – conversion of Muslims to Christianity, killing almost 25 million Muslims, and burning their huge libraries.
The petitioner prayed to the court to direct the federal government to refer the matter to the Parliament to decide the matter by secret ballot and constitute, in alternate, a high-level judicial commission to probe into the matter thoroughly about the contents of the MoU directing to place its report before this court within a fortnight before signing the MoU.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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