Staff reporter
Islamabad
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) rejected US blogger Cynthia D Ritchie’s petition against a judge’s directives to the FIA to file a case against her.
Ritchie had challenged the order of the Additional Sessions Judge of Islamabad at the high court, saying that the FIA should not register a case against her as she had not committed any crime.
The court said on Monday that it could not interfere in the FIA’s investigations and ordered the agency to continue its probe into the US blogger according to law.
Earlier, the petition against the verdict was heard by the IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah, in which lawyer Imran Feroze Malik appeared in the court on behalf of Ritchie.
During the hearing, lawyer Imran Feroze Malik had read out the decision of the session judge regarding the registration of the case, to which the Chief Justice asked how he was affected by the decision.
Petitioner’s counsel replied that there were other aspects to this decision.
Justice Minallah had remarked that this was not an order to register a case directly, adding that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had been ordered to conduct an inquiry first.
Advocate Imran Feroze had said that we[petitioners] are not objecting to the inquiry, only to the registration of the case. In this regard, Justice Minallah had said that the court will not go into the merits of this case.
After hearing the arguments, the chief justice reserved the verdict.
The Additional District and Sessions Judge (ASJ) Jahangir Awan had directed the FIA to register a case against Ritchie, who has levelled harassment allegations against the PPP leadership after a public spat with the party.
