IHC directs FIA to proceed against those who maligned Justice Babar Sattar
Pakistan
The FIA submitted a report that it identified 5 people, including 2 vloggers, involved in the matter
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday tread on different paths while taking up the case of maligning Justice Babar Sattar on social media.
A three-member bench hearing the case directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to proceed against those identified for spreading personal data of the judge and his family on the social media while the registrar office wrote to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, for “identifying accounts involved in defamatory and malicious campaign.”
The FIA submitted a report before the bench comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, who are hearing the complaint of Justice Sattar.
Additional Attorney General Barrister Munawar Iqbal Duggal informed the court that a three-member FIA team probed the matter and identified five people, including two vloggers – Chaudhry Saeed Akhtar and Ihsan Chatta.
He submitted that the FIA had issued notices to all of them, but only two of them responded. A Karachi-based journalist, who was identified through NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority), disassociated himself from the post, he added.
He said that the FIA investigators identified 39 accounts, but 29 of those were inaccessible as NADRA software could not identify them.
The attorney general informed the court that the FIA also approached the social media platform but the company suggested to contact the US embassy.
In the meantime, the IHC registrar office also wrote to X stating that the false information was uploaded to discredit the judge and to “undermine the integrity and authority of the judiciary.”
The letter mentioned that X assisted the British authorities in 2018 to trace the persons involved in spreading false information and Indian law enforcement agencies to track down the users responsible for spreading misinformation and inciting violence during a period of civil unrest.
