The crimes of Saqib Nisar

By Hammad Hassan

Note: Hammad Hassan wrote this column on 17 January 2019, the day of the retirement of Saqib Nisar, the worst judge in history, and placed it before history in the form of a charge sheet.
Now time is beginning to prove, one by one, every crime of this worst of arbiters.

Saqib Nisar has become part of history, but history will go on questioning him and his judicial role. History will go on asking why an elected prime minister was removed from the seat of power over a crime that they could not even prove against him. History will go on asking why and how you sank, for the sake of one particular party, to a level lower than that of a rival political worker, let alone a judge.

History will go on asking why you could not put the worst of dictators, Pervez Musharraf, in the dock, and why you could not ask who had given him the right to toy with this country's fate for ten years. Why, and from where, did you bring into these peaceful streets and lanes the mysterious war of terrorism that rained blood in every street? Yet, by contrast, towards the people's elected prime minister and members of parliament you behaved like a pharaoh.

History will also ask why the reach of the law became impossible when it came to bloodthirsty killers like Rao Anwar and Ehsanullah Ehsan, and why they were left swaggering about in public.

History will also raise the question of why, and how, a chief justice came out to campaign in the election for a politician, Sheikh Rashid.

History will also point a finger at this question: in the very case (dual nationality) in which the Muslim League-appointed adviser on PIA was dismissed, why and how was relief given to Zulfi Bukhari, an adviser to the PTI government?

History will also raise this terrifying question: what unforgivable crime had been committed by Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, the honest and brave judge of the High Court, for which he was pushed out of the hall of justice in a humiliating manner?

History will keep asking what mortal sin a politician who had been Prime Minister of this country three times could have committed, that in jail he was not even allowed to speak for a few seconds on the telephone to his wife, who was writhing in her death throes and drawing her last breaths.

This question of history will remain like an unpaid debt: when neither Maryam Nawaz nor Bilawal Bhutto Zardari held any government office, why were the decisions concerning the two different and contradictory?

History is advancing on Saqib Nisar with this question: what were the reasons for your enmity towards one particular political party? Were you meeting the demands of justice? Or were you serving as an instrument?

Why did you lose your temper whenever the leaders and workers of that party were mentioned?
The standards and harsh rulings that were applied, in similar cases, to Nehal Hashmi, Talal Chaudhry, Daniyal Aziz and others, why were they not applied to the ministers of the PTI government?

Who gave you the right to adopt a tone of foul language and abuse towards the leaders and workers of one particular party?
History is impatient to ask this question: when you were Chief Justice, why did you not rein in NAB's thuggery against opposition politicians? Instead, you kept patting NAB on the back.

You will have to answer this question: why was Shehbaz Sharif, who showed the best performance in Pakistan's political history (in terms of work and development), put in jail, while people such as Aleema Khan, Jahangir Tareen, Babar Awan and Aleem Khan kept walking free? This despite the fact that the worst allegations of corruption were levelled against them.

With pain and sorrow, history will ask what your services have been to the survival of democracy and to basic human rights.
A supplementary question will also be: let Saad Rafique, Hanif Abbasi, Raja Qamaruzzaman and Salman Rafique lie in dark cells, by all means, but are their crimes more serious than those of Rao Anwar?

History's question stands before you, sobbing: while you were regularising Imran Khan's 350-kanal house through court proceedings, at that very moment the homes of poor people, a few marlas each, were being demolished under bulldozers, and they sat under the open sky, wailing for help.
Why did you not hear their screams and sobs?

It must also be asked why you did not demand a money trail from Aleema Khan, and why no JIT was formed. Instead, by imposing a trifling fine, you also made what appears to be a criminal attempt to sweep the dirt under the carpet.

History's chilling question also stands before you: when an elderly man from Rawalpindi accused you in open court of demanding a bribe, why did you, instead of ordering an inquiry into the allegation or forming a JIT, start arguing with the elderly man and threatening him?

And yes, history, with a mixture of anger and sarcasm, will also ask whether it was becoming of an office as most respected and responsible as that of Chief Justice to . . .

At one time you set out to build a dam and went about asking for donations, and then failed in that too; at another you told an accused man at the Karachi Registry to step outside the court and just try laying a hand on you.
At one time you went about hurling pots and plates on the floor in a hospital in Peshawar; at another you threatened to join the Balakot victims in protest; at another you became a preacher of family planning.

You did not realise even for a moment that the office you occupy is a most respected and responsible one. And to preserve that respect, justice and seriousness are urgently needed.

Mr Saqib Nisar, your court has been adjourned, but history is about to convene its own court, and before that fearsome cross-examination you will stand alone with your head bowed, like your predecessors Justice Munir, Justice Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain, Justice Anwarul Haq and Justice Irshad Hasan Khan.

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