ISLAMABAD: Former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) director general Lieutenant General (retd) Faiz Hamid has denied meeting with former Islamabad High Court judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui and has denied any involvement in influencing the legal procedures related to the Panama Papers.
The News said that General Hamid denied any influence over the judiciary, calling the claims “absolutely false, frivolous, concocted and based on an afterthought.” He also said he had no communication with the judge and had never met with him. Hamid added that he had never spoken to the court about Nawaz Sharif’s petitions through the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
According to Faiz, neither Siddiqui’s statement nor the Supreme Judicial Council mentioned a meeting with him. His statement, “Our two years of hard work would go to waste,” He continued by saying that the chief judge’s accusations lacked substance and were unjustified.
In addition, IHC’s former chief justice Muhammad Anwar Khan Kasi filed a response to the Supreme Court’s denial of Siddiqui’s claims. Furthermore, the top court has received Brigadier (retd) Irfan Ramay’s response, in which he refutes the accusations made against him and his meeting with Siddiqui.
Siddiqui asserts that he has proof of two meetings with Gen (R) Faiz Hameed at his official residence in 2018—a claim that contradicts Faiz Hameed’s response. Speaking with The News, Siddiqui claims he has material proof, in addition to a list of witnesses, to support his claim that, when he was the senior serving judge, the then-DG ISI paid him two visits.
Siddiqui said he can provide the evidence to the Supreme Court upon request. The Supreme Court is now considering an appeal over his termination from the Supreme Judicial Council in October 2018. He makes reference to the responses that Gen (R) Faiz and others filed with the Supreme Court in his case, claiming that the responses that refute his claims demonstrate that the SJC fired him from office without conducting any more investigation.
Siddiqui claims that the day following his July 22 speech to the Rawalpindi Bar Association, he had formally addressed then Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, asking him to appoint a commission to look into the veracity and authenticity of the allegations he had made in the speech.
In a letter to the then-CJP, he said, “I am ready to face the consequences if an independent commission holds that there is no reality in the facts presented in the District Bar Association Rawalpindi meeting, but at the same time I have a right to enquire what would be the fate of those persons, be they the serving army personnel who are involved in manipulating the judicial system.”
Additionally, he asked the former CJP to order the investigation by this committee to be conducted in public so that members of the legal community, media, and civil society may attend.
“It is a matter of concern that the independence of my institution has been compromised by the intervention of few individuals of the prestigious institution of Army and its allied agencies,” said Siddiqui in the same letter. Several times, I brought up this intervention, and as a result, I am being cited along with another made-up reference.
He informed the CJP, “As a member of the same bar, I accepted the invitation from the executive body of the District Bar Association, through its President, to address the bar on July 21, 2018.”
“In my speech, I discussed a few current events that are pertinent to the Constitution’s applicability, the rule of law, the bar and bench’s independence, and the administration of justice. It seems that certain quarters were offended by the information I revealed, therefore a hostile and deceptive campaign was started on social media and other electronic platforms.
Through social media and the Honourable Supreme Court PRO’s news statement, I learned that your lordships likewise voiced instant dissatisfaction without checking the information I provided. It is seen that your lordship’s angry outbursts against me are not unprecedented or novel.He continued, “Afterwards, no commission was established, but Siddiqui was fired by the SJC without conducting an investigation.”
