LAHORE: Punjab’s former law minister Rana Sanaullah Khan intends to move the Supreme Judicial Council with a ‘serious’ complaint over the report authored by Lahore High Court’s Justice Ali Baqar Najafi as the chairman of one-man inquiry tribunal on Model Town incident, and may seek permission of his party, the PML-N, for the purpose, it has been learnt.

Sources said Mr Khan is basing his case for sending a reference against Justice Najafi to the SJC under Article 209 (5). The complaint will be based on three main points:

I – The tribunal wholly and solely relied on a report of an intelligence agency. Some points made by the agency were just copy-pasted in the tribunal report. On the other hand, the authorities (or their statements recorded before the tribunal) mentioned as responsible for the incident were not questioned (or cross-examined), the sources said.

II – Justice Najafi was on leave from Aug 4 up to Aug 31 as per the LHC record and, according to a law officer, he had announced not to come out with the inquiry report as far as a writ petition challenging his appointment as chairman of the inquiry tribunal was pending adjudication before an LHC larger bench. But the judge, the sources said, reached his office on Aug 9 and summoned the home secretary in the evening (at 8.30pm).

The officer, it is said, was called over to collect the “tribunal’s report that he had already written”. When the officer reached Justice Najafi’s office he found the media waiting outside “to witness the report handing over ceremony”. This was only hours before the Pakistan Awami Tehreek was to mark Aug 10 as the martyrs’ day to commemorate the 11 activists killed in the June 17 incident in Model Town which the tribunal was investigating.

The media coverage for such a report handing over event is “unprecedented in the history of the country”, the sources said.

III – The only copy of the tribunal report handed over to the home secretary was being kept secret. The government maintained this report was ‘inconclusive’ and wanted an analysis of it by a committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Khalilur Rehman Khan with law and home secretaries and advocate-general as its members. The sources said the home secretary was directed to not allow a copy of the report even for the chief minister or any other authority. The second copy of the report had been retained at the tribunal office as part of the record. But the report was leaked to the media after PAT and PTI long marchers reached Islamabad and the question being asked is that if the home secretary did not leak the document to the media then who else did?

When contacted, Rana Sana indirectly confirmed his intentions of moving the SJC by saying: “The Constitution allows any person having complaint against a superior court judge to take his grievance to the Supreme Judicial Council.”

Article 209 (5) of the Constitution says: If, on information from any source, the Council or the President is of the opinion that a Judge of the Supreme Court or of a High Court-(a) may be incapable of properly performing the duties of his office by reason of physical or mental incapacity, or (b) may have been guilty of misconduct, the President shall direct the Council to, or the Council may, on its own motion, inquire into the matter.

Rana Sana insists that his complaint falls under “on information from any source”.

Under the Constitution, the SJC comprises the Chief Justice of Pakistan and two next most senior judges of the Supreme Court and two most senior chief justices of high courts.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2014