ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court provided another opportunity to Federal Ombudsperson for Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Yasmin Abbasi to engage a counsel, but the ombudsperson dubbed the top court as a place where justice is buried.

`This is the Supreme Court where justice is buried,` Yasmin Abbasi angrily told a three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali.

Ms Abbasi was summoned by the Supreme Court for issuing warrants of arrest for a sitting puisne Lahore High Court judge, Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, a day after she tendered an unconditional apology for her `contemptuous` conduct.

Not only the federal ombudsperson hadissuedarrestwarrantsbutshehad also directed the inspector general of Punjab police to ensure appearance of the judge before the office of the ombudsperson on May 13.

But the Supreme Court took the development in bad taste and, while taking suo motu notice, suspended the purported arrest warrants and asked the ombudsperson to appear in person and explain the situation.

At the last hearing on May 17, Ms Abbasi had taken the stand before the Supreme Court that neither the apex court nor the high court had any jurisdiction to entertain the petition on a matter of which the cog-nizance had been taken by the ombudsperson in terms of Section 18 of the Federal Ombudsman Reform Act. Then she also requested the court to allow her to engage a proper counsel to defend her before it.

But when the matter was taken up on Tuesday and the chief justice asked her to justify under what authority she had issued warrants of arrest against a sitting high court judge, she took the plea that she had requested for clubbing all her petitions pending before the Supreme Court together but through a communication by the assistant registrar of the Supreme Court, she had been informed that though her appeal had been clubbed, her review petition contesting her plea to engage a counsel of her choice had been returned. Thus she had been deprived of her right of appeal since under the Supreme Court Rules 1980, the Registrar`s Office was not a competent authority to deny her the right of hearing.

At this the chief justice, while dictating the order, stated that prima facie the ombudsperson was avoiding proceedings before the Supreme Court by not engaging the counsel. The court, however, decided to give her the last chance andorderedhertoengagethecounsel within a weel< but postponed further proceedings till July 13.

The ombudsperson insisted that her contention should also be written in the order but when her request was declined she said in disgust that this was not justice.

`This is the Supreme Court where justice is buried,` she regretted.

Talking to reporters later, she said that she would never engage a counsel unless her review petition was decided.The suo motu notice was taken by the Supreme Court when the federal ombudsperson issued arrest warrants against Justice Shah just a day after the judge dropped contempt procee dings against her when Ms Abbasi tendered an unconditional apology before the judge.

The contempt proceedings, initiate d for her refusal to appear before the judge, were held in the high court judge chamber on May 9 in which the AG and Punjab IG also appeared.

The high court order of dropping the contempt proceedings mentioned that the respondent (ombudsperson) had thrown herself at the mercy of the court and submitted an unconditional apology.

The order also observed that the respondent had held out an assurance that no such unfortunate incident would be repeated and that she would act in accordance with law and would render the highest respect to constitutional courts at all times.

But on May 10, the federal ombudsperson held proceedings on a showcause notice issued earlier to Justice Shah and held in her order that the high court judge had acted in utter violation of the Supreme Court`s order that enjoined the avoidance of the unpleasant situation.

`Resultantly the contempt notice to Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah for his appearance needs compliance as per law,` the order said.

In her order, the ombudsperson regretted that during in-camera proceedings before the high court judge, the dignity of the ofhce of the federal ombudsperson had been greatly compromised and her institution undermined in an unprecedented manner hitherto unknown to the judicial history of the country.