FIA must address Bajwa complaint as per law

The Federal Investigation Agency has been instructed by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to handle a complaint filed against four people, including a former army chief and a spymaster, for allegedly breaking their code of conduct and spreading false information “in accordance with law.”

On Monday, IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard a petition submitted by Atif Ali, a citizen, via his attorney Raja Rizwan Abbasi. The petition asked for permission for the FIA to file a case against two well-known journalists, former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen (retd) Faiz Hameed, and former army chief Gen (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Following some of the respondents’ claims that the FIA had never received a complaint of this kind, the court ordered the petitioner to provide the receipt of the complaint that he purportedly filed with the agency at the case’s April 1 hearing. On Monday, the petitioner sent up the receipt.

The attorney for General (retd) Bajwa also objected to the petition during the hearing.

According to him, the petitioner had stated that he had filed a complaint with the FIA six months prior. He then filed a petition in court, claiming that the FIA was not opening an investigation or filing a case based on the complaint.

But it turns out that the FIA only discovered the complaint six months later. “The petition ought to be denied due to this irregularity,” he said.

When the journalist’s attorney requested that the judge send the case to a division bench, Justice Farooq said that while a division bench may be constituted, the FIA would need to decide whether or not to file a formal complaint first.

Despite the fact that numerous notable individuals have been charged in this case, the judge observed that it is a common one. Later, it instructed the agency to resolve the complaint in accordance with the law and to notify the respondents of any objections made by General (retd) Bajwa to the complaint.