ISLAMABAD: Judge Abual Hasnat Muhammad Zulqarnain of the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) has been accused of misconduct; the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has sent the case to its administrative committee.
PTI leader Aamir Masood Mughal was granted pre-arrest bail by a division bench consisting of Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, who addressed the charge in their written ruling.
Mughal requested pre-arrest bail at the ATC-1 after being arrested in March of last year on suspicion of organising a group of rioters that burned a police van on fire.
In a court appearance on February 6, Mughal asked the judge of ATC-I to postpone the hearing on the petition until after the general elections on February 8, in which the accused ran as an independent supported by the PTI.
The request was granted by the court, who postponed the case until February 13.
“At the bar, the erudite solicitors for the Mughals claimed that Judge Zulqarnain, the presiding officer, had proclaimed and dictated the order in public. They subsequently learned, meanwhile, that the aforementioned plea [for pre-arrest bail] had been denied due to non-prosecution.”
The petitioner and his solicitors were requested by the IHC to provide independent affidavits to the court, and they subsequently produced affidavits that corroborated the facts, per the order.
The investigation officer in the case verified the petitioner’s and his attorneys’ claims that the ATC-I had postponed the hearing until February 13 on February 6, the court observed.
“At this point, we shall use caution to document our observations about the presiding officer’s [ATC-I judge’s] behaviour in light of the Supreme Court’s established principles and legal framework. On the administrative side, a separate remark is being submitted, nevertheless,” the order stated.
Additionally, a special court established last year to hear cases recorded under the Official Secrets Act of 1923 is presided over by Judge Abual Hasnat Muhammad Zulqarnain.
He found former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and PTI founder and prime minister Imran Khan guilty on January 30, 2022, following a case involving the PTI officials’ purported mishandling of a diplomatic cypher in the final days of the party’s rule.
