Cannot make https calls once connected to IOT Central through MQTT

[vjavle]

Wanted implementing ESP 8266 firmware update
upon receiving a command from IOT Central to device, devices would pull a .bin file from Azure storage https URL (no other security for now to keep it simple).
Issue:
Not able to connect to Azure storage https endpoint through "command received" event handler

Diagnostic so far:
Steps:

1. to understand where is failure, moved makeHttpRequest method to before and after connect_client(SCOPE_ID, DEVICE_ID, DEVICE_KEY) (in code below)
2. used a known https url (with fingerprint hardcoded in the code) to eliminate quirks, if any, of Azure storage URLs

Observations:
https request works before connect_client(SCOPE_ID, DEVICE_ID, DEVICE_KEY), but not after. Logs as below:

Connecting to WiFi..
[HTTP] GET
[HTTP] GET code: 200
removing most HTML for brevity
hostname: iot hub host name parsed from device key by iot-central-firmware
deviceId: device id parsed from device key by iot-central-firmware
username: device id parsed from device key by iot-central-firmware
password: password parsed from device key by iot-central-firmware
[HTTP] GET
[HTTP] GET code: -1
[HTTP] GET failed, error: connection refused

reviewed code of iot-central-firmware and WiFiClient class. But not able to understand why https calls don't work after connect_client(SCOPE_ID, DEVICE_ID, DEVICE_KEY) call

Any explanation would be great.
Thanks

ESP8286 Code is like this:

#include <ESP8266WiFiMulti.h>
#include <ESP8266HTTPClient.h>
#include "src/iotc/common/string_buffer.h"
#include "src/iotc/iotc.h"
#define WIFI_SSID your-wifi-ssid
#define WIFI_PASSWORD your-wifi-password
const char* SCOPE_ID = your iot-central-device-scope-id;
const char* DEVICE_ID = your iot-central-device-id;
const char* DEVICE_KEY = your iot-central-device-key;
void on_event(IOTContext ctx, IOTCallbackInfo* callbackInfo);
#include "src/connection.h"

void on_event(IOTContext ctx, IOTCallbackInfo* callbackInfo)
{
  // ConnectionStatus
  if (strcmp(callbackInfo->eventName, "Command") == 0)
  {
    AzureIOT::StringBuffer buffer;
    if (callbackInfo->payloadLength > 0) buffer.initialize(callbackInfo->payload, callbackInfo->payloadLength);
    LOG_VERBOSE("- Command name was => %s. Command Payload => %s\r\n", callbackInfo->tag,buffer.getLength() ? *buffer : "EMPTY");
    makeHttpRequest();
  }
}

void makeHttpRequest()
{
  WiFiClientSecure client;
  client.setFingerprint("40 af 00 6b ec 90 22 41 8e a3 ad fa 1a e8 25 41 1d 1a 54 b3");
  HTTPClient http;

  if (http.begin(client,"https://jigsaw.w3.org/HTTP/connection.html"))
  {
    Serial.print("[HTTP] GET...\n");
    int httpCode = http.GET();
  
      Serial.printf("[HTTP] GET... code: %d\n", httpCode);
    if (httpCode > 0)
    {
      if (httpCode == HTTP_CODE_OK || httpCode == HTTP_CODE_MOVED_PERMANENTLY)
        Serial.println(http.getString());
    }
    else Serial.printf("[HTTP] GET... failed, error: %s\n", http.errorToString(httpCode).c_str());
  
    http.end();
  }
  else Serial.printf("[HTTP} Unable to connect\n");
}

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  connect_wifi(WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASSWORD);
  makeHttpRequest();
  connect_client(SCOPE_ID, DEVICE_ID, DEVICE_KEY);
  makeHttpRequest();
  if (context != NULL) lastTick = 0;
}

void loop()
{
  if (isConnected)
  {
    unsigned long ms = millis();
    if (ms - lastTick > 5000) //send telemetry every 5 seconds
    {  
      char msg[128] = {0};
      lastTick = ms;

      int pos = snprintf(msg, sizeof(msg) - 1, "{\"Temperature\": %d, \"Humidity\": %d}",10 + (rand() % 20), 11 + (rand() % 20));
      //int errorCode = iotc_send_telemetry(context, msg, pos);
      msg[pos] = 0;
      //if (errorCode != 0) LOG_ERROR("Sending message has failed with error code %d", errorCode);
    }
    iotc_do_work(context);  // do background work for iotc
  }
  else
  {
    iotc_free_context(context);
    context = NULL;
    connect_client(SCOPE_ID, DEVICE_ID, DEVICE_KEY);
  }
}