KARACHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the authorities concerned to find the elements behind an anti-judiciary campaign and work out a mechanism to prevent such a vilification campaign on social and electronic media.

A four-judge bench headed by Justice Amir Hani Muslim expressed concern over the lack of the mechanism and law to prevent campaigns aimed at maligning the judiciary, which enjoys constitutional protection from being discussed even in parliament or at public forums.

During a previous hearing, the court had taken notice of the vilification campaign through social and electronic media against judges of the superior judiciary and directed the chairmen of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority as well as the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency to turn up along with their statements as to what action had been initiated against the perpetrators of such a campaign on social and electronic media.

When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday, the PTA and Pemra chairmen submitted reports with regard to actions initiated against those running a campaign against the judiciary on the social medial as well as on the electronic media.

Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf Ali informed the bench that the issue regarding the jurisdiction of the PTA and the Federal Investigation Agency in cybercrime had been looked into by the Senate’s committee a couple of days ago, adding that legislation on the issue was in progress.

PTA Chairman Syed Ismail Shah said that they were going to introduce a cell which would actively search scandalous content related to the judiciary and report it to the FIA.

He disclosed that at present there was no mechanism to effectively check the sources from where such defamatory campaigns originated.

The chairman further stated that at present there was no law in force regarding cybercrime.

Mr Shah said they had already reported the issue of vilification campaign against judges of the superior court to the FIA, which has taken cognizance of the matter.

Pemra Chairman Absar Alam said that a number of cases in which the regulatory body had taken action were pending adjudication in high courts. He assured the bench that a list of such cases would be provided to the court during the next hearing.

The bench members observed that they could not pass orders without scanning the record pertaining to the aforesaid proceedings.

The bench asked Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed to assist it in the proceedings as an amicus curiae (friend of court) on the issue and adjourned the hearing till Aug 11.

Earlier in the day, Chief Justice of Pakistan Anwar Zaheer Jamali distanced himself from a five-judge bench which was constituted to hear the case regarding ongoing campaign on the social media maligning the superior judiciary and its judges.

CJP Jamali declined to proceed with the case since he was among the superior judiciary judges being targeted during the ongoing campaign. Later, a four-judge bench was constituted to hear the case.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2016