IHC benches to hear defamation cases from judges

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court has formed two larger contempt proceedings bench to separately hear the cases of Justices Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Babar Sattar, who had written letters to the Chief Justice seeking action against those running social media smear campaigns against them.

A larger three-judge bench comprising IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq, Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir will hear Justice Kayani’s case.

Justices Kayani, Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri and Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan will be part of the bench for the contempt proceedings over Justice Sattar’s letter.

The docket of the two contempt of court cases over the social media campaigns against the IHC judges will be published and scheduled for hearing.
Recently, Justice Sattar had written a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, informing him about a malicious social media campaign targeting him.

Read IHC takes action against smear campaigners

On April 28, the IHC released a statement denouncing the online campaign against Judge Sattar as “false and malicious.”

The court emphasized that the judge had exclusively been a Pakistani national all his life.

On Monday, the court decided to elevate the case from a mere letter to formal contempt of court proceedings against those who defame the judge.

A day later, Justice Kayani, the senior-most IHC judge after the Chief Justice, also filed contempt proceedings over a complaint filed against him and his defamation on social media.