IS the joint investigation team being impeded in its work, or is it distracting itself with unnecessary and potentially troubling side activities?

In a sensational confidential report submitted to the Supreme Court — a report that was quickly leaked to the media, creating yet another issue that will have to be resolved — the JIT appears to have both taken aim at the government and provided ammunition against itself.

First, there are the JIT’s allegations of interference by state agencies presumably acting on behalf of the PML-N government.

The complaints are serious and too specific to be simply waved away.

Prima facie, government officials or agencies that are under the control of the government are either trying to prevent the JIT from completing its inquiry within the time frame that the Supreme Court has set or, more insidiously, to block altogether the JIT’s attempt to access evidence that could be relevant to the inquiry.

If that is the case, it is entirely unacceptable and the court has the power to ensure that all agencies under the direct or indirect control of the government cooperate fully with the JIT.

Second, the JIT’s own needs must be examined and the necessary instructions issued to it.

The leaked report makes for astonishing reading for two very different reasons: providing an insight into how delay-and-disrupt tactics work against investigations and for indicating what the JIT itself considers disruptive and how it has gone about collecting examples of the alleged interference.

The vast report that the team has compiled on media and social media commentary allegedly against the JIT is remarkable and suggests the work of a huge monitoring system.

If the team has not compiled the monitoring report itself, then who has provided it to the JIT? Surely, the JIT must be able to explain and justify the use of any and all resources it has access to.

Deeply troubling too is the alleged surveillance of witnesses required to appear before the JIT — who authorised it, to what end, and is it legal or justifiable?

Given the task before it and the institution, the Supreme Court, that has created it, the JIT should take exceptional care to avoid any semblance of improper conduct.

Unhappily, the JIT seems to be lurching from one self-made crisis to another.

From its very composition to allegations of harsh and unnecessary conduct early on, the JIT appears to have a grander view of itself than what the law or norms of inquiry demand.

That Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family submit themselves to accountability in the wake of the revelations in the Panama Papers was necessary.

They are now doing so, with Mr Sharif to appear before the JIT today and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to follow on Saturday. It is now the JIT that must urgently restore some dignity to the proceedings.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2017