Imran Khan / 09 May – Guilty ? not Guilty – A Judge Comes Clear – Opinion Saeed A. Malik

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Sometimes a man speaks and the world stands back and pays attention.This is what Judge Farrukh Farid of the Additional Sessions Court Islamabad did on Jul 22, 2023. He rendered judgement in two cases involving Imran Khan. He merely extended bail to him in both.
This ought to have been an issue of insignificance, but it rose to become one of great moment–enough to drown out the swirl of utter lawless confusion and cacophony in which Pakistan is currently engulfed.
This is not because his judgement extended Imran Khan’s bail, but because of what it said while doing so.
Sometimes what a man says becomes the measure of a man’s worth, especially in times of great exigency. And the words used in Judge Farid’s judgement make him weightier than the combined weight of the government, the entire high command, and Qazi Faez Isa’s herd of bewigged billy goats wrapped in black gowns.

Politics of Pakistan – What Next? Analysis by Tazeen Akhtar

The judgement makes a point of implying:
-That the prosecution, prima facie, has failed to establish that Imran Khan had instigated violence on May 9 for which he has been charged.
-That the prosecution had failed to establish a causal connection between Imran Khan’s actions and the actual commission of the offence for which he was charged.
-That the principal evidence adduced by the prosecution to establish this connection was a video recording which neither pertained to the particular occurance on May 9, and nor was there a single word in it which could be categorized as “instigation” as understood by PPC Section 107.
-That the case was a ridiculous attempt to charge Imran Khan with a crime which reflected malafide intent and ulterior motives on the part of the police/ prosecution.
But the ‘piece de resistance’ of the judgement was the observation that Imran Khan was behind bars on May 9 and that it would be absurd to imply that the petitioner [Imran Khan] himself maneuvered his unlawful arrest from the premeses of Islamabad High Court so that he could provide himself an alibi for his so-called “secret plan of violence”.
And that, given all of the above, handing over the petitioner to the police, would serve no other purpose than to humiliate him!
All the points brought out in the judgement were such that each had occured to every Pakistani who was following this case. But no Pakistani could have dared to think that there would be a judge who would reduce to a formal judgement, this call of pure common sense, when the whole country was in the grip of fear under the cloak of an unending night.

But Judge Farrukh Farid did just that, and for a time stood taller than the 250 million souls around him. And for a while he became a beacon of hope. People began imagining that where there was one Farrukh Farid, there may be more.
But he did more than that. Through his judgement he knocked the bottom clean out of May 9 drama, so painfully and pathetically constructed by the prime brains of a rotten elite.
But before Judge Farid’s gift could be adequately celebrated, new fears reared their heads with regard to the ways of the Almighty– of how He sometimes gave with one hand, only to take back with the other.
The discovery of Judge Farrukh Farid had yet to register itself in the form of a smile that had come to stay, when the dread thought of Qazi Faez Isa becoming our Chief Justice made itself felt, and eroded this smile.
In order that the thought of the one does not wipe out that of the other, it would be best that all the remarks and directions of Qazi Faez Isa which helped to finally bury the Hudaibiya case [during certain fateful proceedings in the Supreme Court] should be transcribed and framed. And for the sake of comparison and equity these should be juxtaposed with a similarly framed judgement of Judge Furrukh Farid.
This comparison will tell the story of two sets of forces. One dedicated to pulling Pakistan down, and the other, exerting its frail efforts to keep it from crashing.

TOTAL CHAOS KNOCKING AT THE DOORS by Tazeen Akhtar

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