File photo. Aamir Qureshi—AFP
The Supreme Court’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) on Monday sought to clarify a controversy arising from a leaked letter claiming superior court judges and their spouses will not be subject to searches at the country’s airports, maintaining the aim of the correspondence was to remove inconsistencies regarding judges’ protocol.
Last week, a letter from the Airport Security Force—dated Oct. 12—leaked to media, stating that the aviation secretary had exempted the spouses of serving judges and chief justices of the Supreme Court from body searches at airports nationwide. The letter triggered significant controversy, with the general public maligning Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa for hypocrisy over seeking protocol while lamenting it in public. It was leaked shortly after the CJP and his wife, Sarina Isa, left for Turkiye during the apex court’s winter break.
Addressing the controversy, the PRO shared a letter from the registrar that had sought to identity the anomaly of spouses of retired judges being exempt from body searches at airports, while the spouses of serving judges still had to undergo frisking. The letter hopes that the aviation secretary would resolve this anomaly. He further wrote a joint letter to Aviation Secretary Saif Anjum and ASF Director-General Major General Adnan Asif Jah Shad regretting that the Oct. 12 letter was ‘coincidentally’ leaked to media 66 days after it was penned, immediately after the CJP and his wife traveled abroad.
In the interest of disclosure, he said, the Sept. 21 letter of the registrar should also be shared to correct misconceptions. Noting that the Supreme Court had neither sought, nor made any rule seeking exemptions from body searches, it said the registrar had simply pointed out an anomaly.
“Your [aviation secretary] letter, while resolving the anomaly does not offer an explanation and neither ASF nor the government of Pakistan was concerned about the security breach,” read the PRO’s letter, noting that in actuality, Sarina Isa had been searched by a lady officer while departing from Pakistan on Dec. 16. Stressing that camera footage from the airport could confirm this, it said no exemption to rules was sought, nor was any given.
The PRO’s letter also clarified that CJP Isa was offered, but declined the use of the VIP lounge. He also, it said, declined the use of a luxury limousine, which drives VIPs to the aircraft.