FIA can probe Cynthia's tweets: IHC.

Byline: Malik Asad

ISLAMABAD -- The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday dismissed the petition of US blogger Cynthia D. Ritchie seeking to set aside the order to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to proceed against her for defaming former prime minister and slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah ruled that the FIA was empowered to conduct an inquiry into the alleged derogatory tweets against Ms Bhutto even if no order had been passed by the learned Justice of Peace.

Soon after the dismissal of her petition, the Pakistan-based American blogger in another onslaught on chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior Rehman Malik addressed the media and hurled new allegations against him. She accused the PPP senator of telling her 'horrific stories' against Ms Bhutto.

Earlier on June 15, Additional District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Jahangir Awan had on a petition of PPP's Islamabad president Raja Shakeel Abbasi observed that 'a crime has been committed falling under Pakistan Electronic Crime Act-2016' and directed the FIA to conduct an inquiry and proceed against the blogger in accordance with the law.

Challenging the order of the sessions court before the IHC, the counsel for Ritchie, Imran Feroz Malik, argued that the judge 'has ignored the fact that under the FIA laws, registration of FIR is not mandatory, it's always subject to result of inquiry, and FIA has been vested with the power to refuse to register FIR if during inquiry the information is found to be false, hence an order directing the FIA to register FIR is otherwise against the express provisions of law hence are liable to be set aside'.

When the matter came up for hearing before the IHC on Monday, her counsel was asked how his client was aggrieved when the directive to the FIA was only to the extent of conducting an inquiry on the petition of PPP's district leadership.

The counsel said the sessions court also decided the question of jurisdiction. He said the FIA in its reply to Judge Awan had expressed inability to proceed on the...

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