The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday restrained the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from making arrests under Section 20 of the recently promulgated Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act Ordinance 2022.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah issued the directives while hearing a petition filed by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) against the ordinance on Tuesday.
President Dr Arif Alvi had promulgated the ordinance on Sunday to amend the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (Peca).
Under the ordinance, online defamation was made a non-bailable, cognisable offence and the jail term for defamation was increased from three years to five years. The ambit of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was also broadened.
The word “natural” was omitted from Section 20 of the ordinance, which was previously titled “offences against the dignity of natural person”. After the amendment, the definition of a “person” was expanded to include any company, association or body of persons whether incorporated or not, institution, organisation, authority or any other body established by the government under any law or otherwise.
During the hearing today, the IHC chief justice remarked that the FIA had already submitted a document of its standard operating procedures (SOPs) to the court, stipulating that no arrests will be made under section 20 of the ordinance.
“In case of violation of the SOPs, director general FIA and home secretary will be responsible,” the court observed.
The FIA had submitted its SOPs to the court in July last year after the IHC had sought a report from the agency to stop misuse of the cybercrimes law.
Justice Minallah remarked that even countries such as Zimbabwe and Uganda were also removing defamation from their criminal law.
