ISLAMABAD: Justice Tariq Masood, a Supreme Court judge, on Tuesday, refused to hear the petitions seeking directions for a probe of the cipher — presented by PTI Chairman Imran Khan as evidence of a “foreign conspiracy” to oust him.

Justice Sardar, who heard an appeal of advocate Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta and others against the SC Register office objections in the chambers, referred the matter to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial to fix it before another bench.

The petitioners have requested the Supreme Court to issue directions for a probe to find out the truth about the letter regarding “international conspiracy”.

Bhutta informed the bench that Pakistan after great efforts came out of the grey list of the FATF, adding due to the cipher a law and order situation created in the country. He asked the judge to direct the government to depute one military and one civilian agency to investigate about the threatening letter.

Justice Tariq after hearing the arguments informed the counsel “that due to personal reasons I don’t want to hear this matter and referred the matter to fix it before another bench.”

Zulfiqar Ahmed, in March last year, had filed a petition in the Supreme Court under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and cited the federation through the Law and Justice Division secretary as respondent.

Former prime minister Imran Khan on 27th March 2022, while addressing a public rally had pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it at the crowd, claiming it was evidence of an “international conspiracy” being hatched to topple his government.

The Pakistan Democratic Movement, the coalition of political parties, which are in the government now believe that the former premier used the letter as an excuse to woo the government’s allies and the PTI dissidents in the face of the no-confidence motion against him.

The petitioner stated that an “extraordinary situation” had caused a law and order situation in the country by causing hatred against friendly countries. He added that the situation required immediate steps to ease the “mental agony” of common Pakistanis caused by this development.

The petitioner prayed that the respondent may be directed to deliver the “letter” to the concerned civil and military authorities to investigate this threat/ letter. The PTI government, on March 30, said that it intended to take the issue to the apex court, and claimed that the PML-N supreme leader, Nawaz Sharif, was a part of the conspiracy.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023