The Islamabad High Court (IHC) strongly denounced a social media campaign targeting Justice Babar Sattar, accusing him of holding U.S. nationality and having business interests in a private school in Pakistan.
According to the IHC, this “false, malicious, and contemptuous” campaign involved sharing the judge’s confidential information, including travel documents for Sattar, his wife, and children.
The campaign also improperly disclosed details from his tax returns, including information about his properties, pairing these details with false and harmful allegations.
The IHC’s public relations officer clarified that Justice Babar Sattar holds only Pakistani nationality. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law School for graduate education. While working as a lawyer in New York, he was granted a Permanent Resident Card after being recognized as someone of extraordinary ability. He returned to Pakistan in 2005 and has resided there ever since.
Justice Sattar’s wife and children, who hold dual citizenship in Pakistan and the U.S., moved back to Pakistan in 2021 when he was appointed as an IHC judge, and they now reside in Islamabad. Regarding property, the IHC PRO stated that all real estate owned by Justice Sattar, whether in the U.S. or Pakistan, was either inherited or purchased while he was a practising lawyer. His tax returns declared these properties, which the Judicial Commission of Pakistan examined before his appointment.
Additionally, the IHC confirmed that before his judicial appointment, Justice Sattar disclosed his green card status to the IHC Chief Justice, which allows him visa-free travel to the U.S. The judge’s mother, an educationist, founded a school in Rawalpindi in 1992, where Justice Sattar had no ownership stake nor was involved in its management. His law firm did provide legal services to the school and received retainer fees.
