ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday reserved its verdict on the maintainability of a petition seeking an investigation into the leaked audio of an alleged telephonic conversation between Bushra Maneka, former first lady, and Arsalan Khalid, focal person on digital media to former prime minister Imran Khan.
The audio, in which Maneka is purportedly instructing Khalid to run social media trends declaring sections of the society critical to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) as traitors, had recently emerged.
As per the audio, initially, Maneka expressed her disappointment with Khalid for the party’s social media team not being active enought. She also seemed to suggest that Khalid and his team had run the traitor hashtag on social media on the instructions of Khan.
“An audio has been leaked […] you want the courts to investigate it? Is this IHC’s job [to do the same],” Justice Aamer Farooq remarked, asking the petitioner if he was an affected party.
“How could the court issue a writ over a private conversation between two people,” he observed. He asked if the party actually affected approached any forum against the audio.
“Think before you draft such a writ,” the judge remarked.
At this, the petitioner’s counsel maintained that it was an “entire sea of words” that have been written in this plea.
Justice Farooq remarked the court doesn’t care if “it was a sea or a galaxy” because it cannot investigate everything.
After this, the court reserved the verdict on the maintainability of the petition.
