These are not lines from a film. This is a conversation between the son of Saqib Nisar, a former chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court, and a candidate for an MPA ticket. The candidate wanted a PTI ticket for the Punjab Assembly. Mr Nisar had tried to get the candidate the ticket, and his worthy son was now demanding payment for that effort: "one-twenty", meaning 12 million rupees.
He was telling the candidate that once he had the ticket, he should come and give Baba a hug. This is not the kind of hug that takes away all your sorrows and pains; it was a hug worth 12 million rupees. All this reached the public through an audio recording. I will not call it an "alleged audio leak", because Mr Nisar has himself confirmed that the voice in it is his son's. This audio has torn the veil from our system of justice and exposed its ugly face.
Viewers, think! This man, now a former chief justice, is earning so much from arranging tickets. When he sat in the chair, and the general elections were held under his supervision, how much must he have made then? The truth is that his tenure was the darkest period in the history of Pakistan's judiciary. He occupied the chair with the manner of a pharaoh. The Nawaz League was in government. Every day he would summon politicians and bureaucrats to the dock, and speak to them with contempt, as if he were His Imperial Majesty.
Unfortunately, a small man occupied a high office, intoxicated by the power of a big chair. He disqualified from politics for life a three-time prime minister who had won tens of millions of votes, merely for not drawing a salary from his son. He removed him from the party presidency and cancelled the Senate tickets issued over his signature, and all those senators then won as independent candidates. He stopped the PKLI hospital from functioning. Dr Saeed, who had given up everything in America to come to Pakistan, was summoned to court and humiliated, merely to benefit the man's own brother. In this way he did irreparable damage to a project that provided free treatment for poor people's kidney and liver ailments. The same man kept a stay order on the Lahore Orange Line train for a full year so that it would not be completed on time and Shehbaz Sharif could not inaugurate it. That stay wasted public money. And that man in the big chair went on blindly harming this country, yet there was no one to stop him, because at that time the system needed such corrupt people.
At that time the system had adopted a favourite, and that favourite had to be brought to the seat of power. For this task, corrupt people were hand-picked to clear the favourite's path to the assembly. Everyone will have seen that video of the gentleman, sitting in court, saying that he would dispose of five or six MPAs just like that. Think how much he must have taken for disposing of those MPAs. What fee must he have collected for awarding that favourite a certificate of being honest and trustworthy? How many hugs must he have received for disqualifying Nawaz Sharif for life? Will anyone ever answer these questions?
Instead of feeling ashamed of the dark deeds of his past, the gentleman is active once again in the same despicable role. At one moment an audio emerges of him talking to Tariq Rahim, saying that Maryam Nawaz should be crushed. Why crushed? Because she speaks out, because she exposes his hideous role, so she must be silenced. At another moment the gentleman is telling Tariq Rahim how Shehbaz Sharif is to be disqualified, citing various cases. When asked about it, he brazenly says that he had only sought a legal opinion.
Tariq Rahim's wife sends direct messages to Justice Bandial and Munib Akhtar. Together with Justice Bandial's mother-in-law, she plans that elections must be held quickly or else martial law will be imposed. Keep watching the antics of all these petty men, and keep asking yourself what games these people have played with this country for their own interests.
This circus continues even today, and the reason is the same: a favourite has to be brought to power, and the path of Justice Qazi Faez Isa has to be blocked, so that the system can go on being run in the same corrupt manner through the junior judges who have been installed. Audio recordings of Justice Mazahir Naqvi have emerged, and talk of giving him a truck has come out, but the Chief Justice has taken no action, because to save himself he needs just such corrupt judges. This process must now be stopped. How long will the fate of this country be decided through judicial dictatorship after military dictatorship? A full stop has to be put somewhere.
Except for parliament and politicians, we have turned everyone into a sacred cow, whom nobody can hold to account. Power-hungry generals wrought havoc in the country, but nobody can question them; some judges damaged the country with wrong decisions, but nobody lays a hand on them. Yes! Only the politician is disqualified for life for not taking a salary from his son.
If parliament is united today, it should also do something to uphold its own dignity. How long will members of parliament keep allowing themselves to be exploited? If the people have elected and sent them, governing is their job: the institutions are subordinate to them, not they to the institutions. This game of "one-twenty, one-twenty" must now end, or you will be finished and not even a trace of you will be left.
