Shamefully for it, the IB confronted with undeniable evidence acknowledged that it was keeping tabs on JIT members, claiming it was standard operating procedure to gather intelligence on matters of national importance. As expected, the court rejected outright the claim asking the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) to cite any law which authorized IB to harass JIT members' families, and that if the judges (since the JIT is acting in the court's behalf) too were under surveillance. The AGP of course had no answer. The court also expressed displeasure over what it described as an organized government-run media campaign against the JIT and the court itself, pointing out that eight different people attacked the JIT on a daily basis on different TV channels, but stopped short of issuing contempt notices, apparently, to disallow any distraction from the case. The team members too have been advised to concentrate on the probe without paying any attention to the media, and submit its report within the stipulated 60 days.
Meanwhile, it should worry us all why the institutions are behaving the way they are. They surely are not there to protect the Prime Minister and his family or anyone else from accountability, but to serve the public interest by doing their duty without fear or favour. Regrettably, every one of them has been acting as a handmaiden of the Prime Minister, which only goes on to show there is something to be covered up. Standing in sharp contrast is the example of the US where the FBI, an investigation agency under the president, has launched criminal investigations into alleged links between President Trump's campaign and Russia. Although Trump fired the FBI director James Comey that has not stopped the probe. And Comey, as a precautionary measure, had dutifully kept detailed memos of his conversations with the president, which he has presented before the Senate in his testimony against his former boss. Here in this supposed democracy right from the start it has been a completely different story. Otherwise quite efficient, in the present case all relevant government organisations wouldn't move at all. When last March, the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly summoned the heads of five concerned agencies - the SBP, FBR, SECP, NAB and FIA - to find out what were they doing about the alleged Panama Papers corruption case involving the Prime Minister and his family, at first they tried to avoid appearing before the committee and when they finally came after repeated calls, all five of them threw up their hands refusing to do their duty, which in the first place was the reason the case reached the apex court, leading to the formation of the JIT.
Now the JIT investigators are being harassed while the SECP is reported to be denying access to required record and also tampering with documents. Hampering public officials- the JIT members acting on the apex court's authority- in the performance of their duties is a serious crime. Any of this would be totally unacceptable in a functioning democracy. Yet some have been indirectly defending this indefensible behavior hiding behind lofty democratic principles, first to raise objections to the inclusion in the JIT of two uniformed members, and now by taking exception to the JIT submissions that include an extensive report on TV and the media commentary critical of the JIT. It has been argued that since the team's civilian members do not have the resources to monitor so much that is being said in the media, it could only be labour of those who are not supposed to be doing this kind of work. Indeed, so. On principle, the army shouldn't be involved in this case. The objections, however, would be valid if all organs of the government were effectively performing their respective functions.
Under the present circumstances, it is unfair to create suspicions about the assistance the army is providing to the JIT in its investigations. Here are two reasons justifying this role. First, the inclusion of two army officers in the JIT has been necessitated by the relevant accountability organizations' bending to the government's will. They have been unable and unwilling to carry out the necessary investigations because the government would not let them do that. As Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan aptly observed, "we cannot leave everything at the mercy of the person against whose assets the court had ordered an inquiry when an important case was being inquired."
Second and most importantly, the court has the authority to ask any organization, including the army, for help which could include relevant media reaction. That in no way should affect the army's status as an institution subservient to the executive. There is nothing unconstitutional and hence objectionable about its role in the JIT. But it surely is a sad reflection on the state of this democracy.
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Copyright Business Recorder, 2017