LAHORE: An audio leak purportedly featuring PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry and his brother Faisal Hussain on “arranging a meeting between judges of the superior courts” surfaced on Friday.

Mr Chaudhry immediately distanced himself from the leak. In a tweet, he stated, “A fake audio-leak has been thrown in the market, which has nothing to do with me. I have never met the Lahore High Court chief justice nor urged him to support Justice Mazahar Ali Naqvi.”

In the recording, which features photos of Mr Chaudhry and his brother Faisal Hussain, a voice alleged to be that of the PTI leader can be heard saying that a senior judge of the LHC wanted to meet a top judge of the Supreme Court. The audio made reference to one of the judges linked to an earlier audio leak.

In the audio, initially shared by journalists on social media, Mr Chaudhry allegedly asked the other person to “get four more sections imposed in a case on Tarar so that he feels some pressure”.

PTI leader says recording has nothing to do with him

While the clip only mentions Tarar, it appears to be a reference to PML-N leader Atta Tarar, who was named in a hooliganism case filed during the previous Punjab government, led by Chaudhry Parvez Elahi.

The clip — which appears to be a stitched version of different audio bits extracted from a single conversation — could not be independently verified by Dawn. The timing and context of the alleged audio recording is not clear.

The audiotape has surfaced a few weeks after PTI chief Imran Khan wrote a letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial and other Supreme Court judges, and sought “enforcement” of the fundamental rights of the public — including the Constitution’s Article 14 (fundamental right to privacy) — in connection with a series of private telephonic conversations of political leaders that surfaced online over the past few months.

The former premier wrote to the CJP after a phone call of PTI central Punjab president Dr Yasmin Rashid with the former CCPO Ghulam Mehmood Dogar surfaced. In that audio, the PTI leader was allegedly speaking to the police officer, asking if he had received the posting orders after he was reinstated as the CCPO by the Supreme Court. As per the audio clip, the police officer replied that no orders had reached him.

Dr Rashid lambasted the PDM government over the release of her audio clip and asked if she was conspiring against the country.

“The corrupt and incapable rulers are not able to control the terrorists striking across the country, but focusing on the private conversation of citizens of the country,” she had said and added that she would move the court over the issue.

The PTI government had appointed Mr Dogar as convener of the joint investigation team to investigate the assassination attempt on Imran Khan in Wazirabad.

“Being a citizen of Pakistan, I will talk to any officer I like, as it is my fundamental right,” she had asserted.

The purported audio of Mr Chaudhry and his brother is the latest in a spree of private conversations – mostly involving opposition leaders and their allies – that had been leaked.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2023