ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to proceed against the persons identified for spreading personal data of Justice Babar Sattar on the social media.

The IHC registrar office on the other hand wrote to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, for “identifying accounts involved in defamatory and malicious campaign” against the judge.

During the hearing, the FIA submitted a report before the bench comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, who heard the complaint of Justice Sattar against the data leaks.

Additional Attorney General Barrister Munawar Iqbal Duggal informed the court that the FIA constituted a three-member team to probe the matter and identified five persons, including two vloggers namely Chaudhry Saeed Akhtar and Ihsan Chatta.

IHC registrar seeks X assistance to identify those behind accounts involved in ‘defamatory drive’ against judge

He said that the FIA had issued notices to all of them, but only two of them responded.

He apprised the high court that a Karachi-based journalist, who was identified through National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) assistance, disassociated himself from the post against the judge.

In all, the investigators traced 39 accounts, but 29 of those were inaccessible, the additional attorney general said, adding that Nadra software could not identify a few accounts purportedly being operated from Pakistan.

When the bench inquired if the FIA had approached the social networking platform, Barrister Duggar replied in the affirmative. However, he explained that the social networking company had suggested the FIA to contact the US embassy.

In a related development, the IHC registrar office wrote to X seeking information related to the accounts “involved in the circulation of defamatory and false information, as well as dissemination of personal and private details” pertaining to the judge.

The letter stated that the false information was uploaded to discredit the judge and to “undermine the integrity and authority of the judiciary.”

According to the letter, the investigation agencies “seem to have hit the dead end” and suggested that X respond more proactively to requests made directly by the courts.

The IHC sought information about “the identity of the account holders, including any available contact information” and “IP address associated with the creation and use of these accounts”.

Besides, “any other relevant information that may assist in identification of these individuals” and confirmation “whether there was a concerted effort in the background for the tweets in question to hit the trending panel” was also sought.

According to the letter, in case X under its policies is not ready to provide the relevant information, it would be of tremendous assistance for the court if it could depute a knowledgeable officer and counsel to appear as amicus for the court to “better comprehend the policies of X in such investigation and disclosures”.

In this regard, it also highlighted the instances where X assisted the British authorities in 2018 to trace the persons involved in spreading false information and Indian law enforcement agencies to track down the users responsible for spreading misinformation and inciting violence during a period of civil unrest.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2024