The chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the director generals of the Federal Investigation Agency and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) have been ordered by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to provide the court with an explanation for why they should not be charged with contempt of court.
In connection with the audio leaks case, the IHC also served preliminary notices to the heads of government ministries for possible contempt of court.
The high court ordered leaders of government departments to prove to them that they should not be held in contempt of court after ruling that the applications for IHC Justice Babar Sattar’s recusal were not legitimate.
The IHC court instructed those who granted the state agencies jurisdiction in the 40-page ruling on the departments’ recusal pleas.
Three government agencies, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), PTA, and FIA, were fined Rs0.5 million apiece earlier this week by the court, which also dismissed their individual pleas over the same issue.
The IB was not fined by the court at that particular hearing, but Tariq Mehmood, the Joint Director General, was called to the next hearing.
The IB filed a motion to remove its objection to the bench hearing the case of the audio leaks a few days after the three departments were penalized. Nevertheless, Justice Sattar denied the petition.
