ISLAMABAD, June 12: Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Tuesday said the cases relating to the Bahria Town were the real cause of torment to the institution of judiciary, and regretted that neither police nor the FIA were interested in unearthing the mystery behind the murder of Mohammad Fayyaz, a security guard of the Bahria Town.

He made the observations at the head of a three-judge bench,  comprising Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, which took up a suo motu case of Raja Riasat, father of Fayyaz. Raja Riasat has died since filing the case.

The murder case was lodged in 2008 by Shaukat Ali, a supervisor in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA). No progress has been made in the case since October 10, 2010.

The subsequent pace of investigations irked the Supreme Court which regretted that an open-ended FIR was registered by Shaukat Ali who recorded seven supplementaries on different dates, nominating at least 11 persons many of whom were exonerated later on reaching compromise.

The purpose of the open-ended FIR was to grab lands by blackmailing the people, the court lamented while referring to an inquiry conducted by the sessions judge. His report had also mentioned a series of eight advertisements in different newspapers on behalf of Raja Riasat requesting the chief justice to initiate suo motu notice on the murder of Fayyaz against Dr Shafiqur Rehman, son of Brig (retired) Sajawal and owner of the Allied Developer Company.

Dr Rehman, an accused in the case, had been released but the sessions judge failed to trace the culprits behind the murder, the court noted.

Ironically, Raja Riasat was not a well-to-do man to afford funding of the advertisements, the court observed, regretting that the wife of the deceased had already taken compensation.

“Apparently, it was Malik Riaz who funded these advertisements,” the court added.

The court also summoned former director general FIA Javed Iqbal who conceded that criminal negligence was shown by the investigating officers as evident by the faulty investigation.

But the court was angry that despite promises he had failed to come up with a thorough probe since he was substituted by Fayyaz Leghari.

In its order, the court directed Mr Iqbal to conduct a thorough investigation into the murder.

The court also took exception to disassociating of senior counsel Hamid Khan from the case and ordered its office to issue notice to the counsel to appear before the court on June 22.

The bench deplored that despite a number of adjournments no progress had been shown by any investigating agency and on Tuesday also instead of presenting progress further time was sought to investigate the matter.

“In the circumstances, we are unable to understand why the FIA is also reluctant to identify the accused involved in the murder of Fayyaz though actions were taken against assistant sub-inspectors (ASI) sparing the big fish.”