The office of Islamabad High Court judge Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri received “suspicious calls and messages”, days after IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq had declared that the court cannot tolerate any malicious campaign against any judge any longer, reported a private Tv news channel on Wednesday, quoting court sources. The person behind the suspicious calls introduced himself as director general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the sources said and added, the caller wanted to talk directly to Justice Tariq Jahangiri. The sources said after an investigation it was learnt that FIA DG did not make any call to the IHC judge. Later, Justice Tariq Jahangiri summoned IHC Registrar and directed him to immediately report the mobile phone number from which the call came to the FIA. The suspicious called was made to the IHC judge’s office two days ago and suspicious messages were also sent to Justice Tariq Jahangiri’s mobile number, the sources said.

On Monday last, IHC CJ had declared that the court cannot tolerate any malicious campaign against any judge any longer as he led the full court bench hearing matter of social media campaign against the high court judge. A smear social media campaign was launched against Justice Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri, terming his academic degree invalid. Subsequently, a case was also filed on the same matter in the Supreme Judicial Council. "The IHC took action in a similar matter earlier as well but nobody learnt a lesson from it," the IHC chief justice said, warning that whoever was involved in the campaign would be brought to justice". The IHC CJ's remarks came during the contempt of court proceedings that the court started against those involved in the smear campaign against the IHC judge. The high court's full bench headed by the IHC CJ and comprised Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, Justice Babar Sattar, Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan, Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz. Justice Jahangiri was not a part of the bench.

It should be noted that Jahangiri was a member of the IHC judges’ group who wrote a letter on March 25 calling upon Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa to convene the judicial convention to consider the matter of alleged interference of intelligence operatives in the judicial functions or "intimidation" of judges in a manner that undermined the independence of the judiciary. Petition filed against Justice Jahangiri A petition was filed in IHC on Wednesday urging the court to bar Justice Tariq Jahangiri from work until his academic degrees are verified. The petitioner urged the IHC to summon Justice Jahangiri and ask him under what authority he is still performing his duty as a judge with “fake degrees”. Mian Dawood Advocate filed the petition against Justice Tariq Jahangiri in the IHC.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan