LAHORE    -    Reacting to the forma­tion of three-member judicial commission to probe recent au­dio leaks involving se­nior judges and influ­ential persons, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Saturday said that ele­ments who resort to il­legal surveillance must also be identified by the Commission. 

In a detailed state­ment on his Twitter handle, the PTI chief said the federal govern­ment has formed an inquiry commis­sion under “Section 3 of the Commis­sions of Inquiry Act, 2017” to investi­gate into the issue of audio leaks. “The Federal Government has formed In­quiry Commission under Section 3 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 2017 to investigate into the issue of Audio Leaks. However, the Terms of Refer­ence formed by the Federal Govern­ment suffer from a deliberate omis­sion. They fail to take into account the issue that who is behind unlaw­ful and unconstitutional surveillance of PM office and sitting judges of the Supreme Court.” “The Commission should be empowered to investigate who are these powerful and unknown elements who tap and record telephone conversation of citizens including high public functionaries. This is seri­ous breach of privacy guaranteed un­der Article 14 of the Constitution. Not only those who illegally retrieve data through unlawful phone tapping and surveillance should be held account­able but those who through fabrication and tampering of different phone calls leak them on social media also need to be held accountable.” “Democracies governed by the rule of law propose that the state should not arbitrarily intrude into certain aspects of life.