WHENEVER the Supreme Court or any other court is seized with an important case, a deliberate campaign is launched against it especially on the so far unregulated social media to malign and defame the judiciary. The same kind of malicious campaign has been started now against the judges of the apex court including the honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmad when it has taken a very pertinent suo moto notice regarding the situation arising out of Coronavirus in the country. The timing of the malicious campaign itself suggests that there are certain elements who want to create a sort of wedge between the executive and the judiciary. In this context, Prime Minister Imran Khan has done the right thing of entrusting the responsibility to the DG, FIA, to track down the culprits involved in it. The way the DG, FIA, has brought to the fore the sugar and wheat mafia, we are confident that in this particular case also, he will leave no stone unturned to expose to the nation the real culprits. In fact, those involved in such defamatory campaign against the judges must be given exemplary punishment so that nobody in future could dare to point finger on the integrity and character of the honourable judges. Civilized nations always give great respect to their judiciary as it is important to ensure free, fair and impartial administration of justice and we also need to act as a civilized nation. We also expect the relevant quarters to effectively present before the apex court the steps taken by the federal and provincial governments to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. In fact, the in- put and observations of the honourable judges will also help them further strengthen their response against the pandemic which has affected everybody and brought everything to a standstill. Then, time has also come to regulate the social media to curb hate material and harmful material on it which keep surfacing every now and then.
