LAHORE, April 29: The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to consider as ‘sensitive’ official material furnished by the state regarding the preventive detention of Dr Ahmad Javed Khwaja and his brother.

The state had produced before the court a file of the interior ministry, saying it contained sensitive material and was being furnished exclusively for the court’s own consumption.

After having gone through the matter, the bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal and Karamat Nazir Bhandhari ruled that it contained routine correspondence between the interior ministry and the federal government and was devoid of any matter that could be called sensitive or secret.

The matter before us does not contain the answer to the court query as to whether the federal review board had afforded the mandatory opportunity of hearing to the detenues before recommending a two-month extension in their preventive detention on March 29, the court observed, acknowledging that though the matter could be sensitive from the state’s point of view, to the court it appeared to be a normal affair.

Deputy Attorney-General Sher Zaman Khan expressed his inability to update the court about the mandatory appearance of the two detenues before the review board and date along with the venue of the board’s meeting. He submitted that the answer to the letter written by the interior ministry to the secretary of the board was still awaited and no such information was available except the sensitive matter placed before the court.

The court expressed its displeasure over this plea, observing that the state should have come up with a definite answer within a week’s time and now it appeared as if the authorities concerned were reluctant to disclose anything even to the court. It is a sad situation that the DAG is not in a position to update the highest court of the country on a simple and definite query despite a lapse of one week, observed Justice Bhandhari. He ruled that the matter regarding the extension of two citizens was still undetermined owing to the red-tapism.

When asked by the court whether the DAG would be able to get a definite response from the quarters concerned by Friday, the DAG answered he was not sure about it. The DAG argued that the question regarding the meeting of review board and the mandatory appearance of the detenues before it could only be considered once a fresh petition was filed to challenge the latter extension of the detenues. He further submitted that the SC did not have the powers to judicially review the proceedings of the review board whose members were appointed from among the SC judges on the orders of the chief justice of Pakistan.

The court refused to accept this argument on a ruling that the judges working on the review board did not function in the capacity of SC judges. Rather they function as board members and their orders were subject to judicial review.

The court inquired from the petitioners’ counsel Hamid Khan as to whether the state should be given more time for procuring a definite answer about the review board proceedings or should it conclude the proceedings on his petition after hearing both the parties right after Tuesday’s hearing.

The Khwajas lawyer, Hamid Khan, contended that the state’s failure to come up with an answer to court query within one-week time amounted to confirmation that neither the meeting of the review board was held nor were the detenues produced before it.

Justice Bhandhari, however, observed that there was nothing on the judicial record even from the petitioners’ side to confirm as to whether they were produced before the board. You should procure an affidavit from the two detenues to the extent that they were not produced before a review board and place it on the judicial record by May 2, so that the court can have something in writing to proceed further, he directed the counsel.

The Kot Lakhpat Jail superintendent was directed by the court to allow a meeting of advocate Pervez Inayat Malik with the two detenues in jail on Wednesday for procuring an affidavit from them. The petitioners’ counsel was further directed to respond to the objections on the next hearing, raised by the state counsel that the current petition had become infructuous since a fresh detention order had been passed and the petitioners did not amend their petition to this effect.