ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) on Monday ordered to make public the names of 282 journalists, who received payments or gifts from the secret fund of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in its bid to seek their support in writing in favour of the government.
A two-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Jawad S. Khwaja issued its directives during the hearing of the case pertaining to petitions file by two private television channel anchors who had requested the court to probe the matter of media accountability and payments made to journalists by the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP)- led government in 2011-2012.
The list of 282 journalists would be uploaded on the SC website later in the day. This is the first time that any such list has come into light as in the past the secret fund of the information ministry was never made public.
Another list of 155 journalists who received payments or gifts would also be made public later.
The apex court, earlier last year, had begun its probe and sought information and froze the funds of the information ministry after the petitioners had sought a probe and requested an end to the secret funds of the information ministry.
The information ministry had then denied the allegations.
Later this year, the court found out that that the federal information ministry had distributed gifts worth millions from its secret funds among a few journalists during the year 2011-12.
The court had later also learnt that former prime minister Raja Parvez Ashraf had approved on March 16, the last date of his government, a summary sanctioning payment of over Rs1.32 billion for media campaigns.
DND
