re: Family Gate Scandal
In the name of the father - Mohammad Malick
**In the name of the father
**
Mohammad Malick
Friday, June 08, 2012
Never even in his wildest imagination could Arsalan Iftikhar have expected to become a poster boy for unbridled avarice. Who could have predicted that while five generals had failed to bring his father to his knees, the son could have delivered a crushing blow all by himself?
On his first appearance in court on Wednesday, Arsalan had managed an air of false bravado. On Thursday, however, he was reduced to a pale shadow of yesterday’s self. Pensiveness had replaced feigned aplomb — and the mood only grew darker as Geo News Anchor Kamran Khan carried on with his deposition. Indeed, if even half of what Kamran Khan shared turns out to be true, Arsalan is either an idiot savant or an obnoxiously cocky young man who simply didn’t give a damn about the consequences of what he was doing — as long as he could have his fun, and that too at someone else’s expense. So what if many would now like his father to pay the price? His alleged acts of corruption, thoroughly documented and on the record, read like an accountant’s wet dream.
In a brief interaction with the media, loading his statements with a lot of ‘I didn’t know this at the time,’ and ‘I paid back this person or that,’ Arsalan has already confirmed that he engaged with Malik Riaz’s Bahria Town enterprise. So at least that’s out of the way. On the other hand, he has also argued how he could take money from Malik Riaz when he has never even met him, ever. Maybe he needs to be told that none of the players who received money from Younus Habib in the dirty ISI-funding scheme had ever met the banker. You don’t need to meet people to meet their money, son.
But sarcasm aside, the ongoing saga has raised some critical questions. Is this case about yet another allegedly dirty first son entering into an unholy alliance with another unscrupulous business tycoon? Is it another example of the tragic trend of the land’s high and mighty feeling secure in the conviction that they are beyond accountability?
Or is this simply about felling a man who has become a paragon of justice and honour?
The chief justice has already done the two most honourable things expected of him. Without waiting for the filing of any formal charges or complaint against his son, he took suo motu notice of media murmurings and ordered a full-blown public hearing in the affair. He then recused himself from the bench hearing the case to avoid charges of conflict of interest. After all, the supreme court’s strength lies in its moral propriety and Justice Chaudhry has upheld it, yet again. One is reminded of the words of Christopher de Bellaigue in his biography of Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh: “He was not a soldier, deriving prestige from the pips on his shoulders and the shine on his shoes. He did not borrow his authority, like a mullah, from God. It was all his own”.
It is all the CJ’s own too.
So where do we go from here? The classic way of establishing the identity of hidden perpetrators of a crime is to first ascertain the beneficiaries of the outcome of such a happening. So who benefits if Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry falls?
**Let’s see. The ruling PPP government would surely love to see his back. From gunning for the president on corruption charges, convicting the prime minister for contempt, to incarcerating ministers for graft and suspending MNAs for being dual nationals, the SC has been a thorn in the government’s side for the past four years. Not only that, the CJ has never shirked from rattling the executive’s collar for every perceived act of misgovernance.
But let’s be clear: there is no evidence as yet to suggest the government is at all involved in this latest saga. And yet, some in the PPP have themselves sullied the party’s name by being shamefully public about their glee at the CJ’s travails.** Fawad Chaudhry, until yesterday a dictator’s peddler and now the prime minister’s adviser, God help Gilani, has been paying for the CJ’s blood, especially on Twitter — and ironically in the name of morality and propriety. This at a time when the only advice one would give the PPP-led government is to stay as far away as possible from this scandal. Even Geo anchorperson Hamid Mir said that when he asked Malik Riaz if the government had put him up to hatching this mega-scheme, the business tycoon said the president had in fact advised him to keep the whole thing under the lid and in fact to not get involved in any such scheme.
But obviously, Fawad Chaudhry knows better than Zardari. My humble opinion, however, is that if there’s any real advice for the PPP, it is to stay neutral. Fawad’s ramblings on Twitter certainly won’t help.
**Then there are the intelligence agencies who are incensed by the CJ’s irritating habit of ferreting out ‘missing persons’ from their unannounced custody. His unrelenting hammering away on various human rights- related issues has made them look like unremorseful rogues loathe to changing their ways. And since they won’t change, why not help change the man standing in their way? Thanks to the CJ’s focus on Balochistan and the missing persons issue since 2007, both matters have been forced into the national debate and are no longer seen through a purely security paradigm.
Nobody would be happier than the security agencies to see the CJ beat a hasty retreat and that too in indignation.
**
**Then of course, there is the mightiest of the mighty, our holiest holy cow, Malik Riaz, who needs to tell us why he was paying — if he was — Arsalan all this time. According to Hamid Mir and Kamran Khan, Malik Riaz has told them it was the CJ’s son who was blackmailing Malik Riaz, threatening to adversely influence the Bahria Town cases pending in the Supreme Court if Malik Riaz didn’t continue paying up. The other theory of course is that it was Bahria Town that approached Arsalan in the hope that he could positively influence the CJ into letting the boss off the hook. Which theory sounds more convincing?
As powerful as the CJ is and as popular, the fact of the matter is that no Arsalan Chaudhry can dictate terms to a man of Malik Riaz’s wealth and influence. Not only does he have the politicians in his pocket, he also maintains strong ties with the army. And while the CJ exercises all his influence and power while sitting on a bench, in broad daylight, much of Malik Riaz’s power comes from his subterranean hobnobbing with the powers that be. Indeed, when people question why Malik Riaz would engage in a scheme such as the one that has come to the fore — one that may end up damaging the CJ but would certainly see Malik Riaz sullied himself — they forget something very basic about how power works: it corrupts, yes, but it also deludes. How many of the mighty have fallen just because of an unshakable belief in their own infallibility?**
The capital is now abuzz with whisperings of how this scandal — even if it has nothing to do with the CJ except that it involves his son — will be used to bring down the top judge. The issue will be packaged as the CJ having become a liability for the court, thus forcing him to resign for the greater good of an institution that he has spent a lifetime serving. We need to stand guard against any such schemes and not let the CJ pay for something he hasn’t done. But we must also ask — as many already are — that even if the CJ did not err as the top judge of this country, did he look the other way as a father?
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Here on the forums that is, no one can deny that. As for me, I’ve always thought very little of the guy, if any at all. I’ve been aware of what he does and how he does it for quite some time now. But it’s good that a lot of his dirt is floating up in the media these days. All for a good cause.