LAHORE, June 30: The Lahore High Court is likely to take up on Tuesday a petition, challenging the deportation of the wife and four children of PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif.

Sharifs counsel Ashtar Ausaf Ali said in the petition filed on Monday: “It has been reported in the press that the family is being harassed at the behest of the federal government which has allegedly resolved to deport them in clear violation of articles 8, 10, and 15 of the Constitution.”

According to the counsel, there existed no agreement of any kind for the family’s stay outside Pakistan.

He claimed that no family member was a political figure and no one of them uttered a single word against the government. He sought interim orders to restrain the federal government from deporting the family.

Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court ordered on Monday the recovery and production within 24 hours of Shahbaz Sharif’s wife and four children through a bailiff from the alleged house confinement of police.

“Let a court bailiff be deputed to recover Nusrat Shahbaz and her four children — Javeria Shahbaz, Rabiya Shahbaz, Hamza Shahbaz and Salman Shahbaz — from 178-H Model Town, Lahore, and to produce them in the court accordingly,” Justice Raja Muhammad Sabir said in the amended order.

The earlier order had no mention of the place from where the five Sharifs were to be recovered.

However, at the request of Sharifs counsel Ashtar Ausaf Ali, the court mentioned the address of the Model Town residence of Mian Miraj Din, the father-in-law of Shahbaz Sharif.

The counsel had alleged in a habeas corpus petition filed on June 28 that Shahbaz Sharif’s family had been confined to Miraj Din’s residence by the police officials to force them to leave the country. He had sought the recovery of the Sharifs through a bailiff. The court had also ordered restoration of the utilities services at the Model Town residence.

The recovery order was passed after Punjab Advocate-General Shabbar Raza Rizvi informed the court that he had no objection if a bailiff was deputed for the recovery and production of the five Sharifs.

Earlier, the AG had refuted the allegations that the Sharifs had been confined to a house. He had submitted that neither the police force had been deputed outside the residence nor had the provincial government issued any directions in this regard.

The AG had read excerpts from newspapers published in the first week of April this year, quoting Nusrat Shahbaz as saying she had come to Pakistan with her children only to make arrangements for the engagement of her daughter, Javeria.

The AG also produced a certificate from the authorities concerned that no utility connection at 178-H Model Town was severed. “There is no siege nor any of them has been house-confined,” he claimed.

Mr Ashtar alleged that the AG had read out only those excerpts from news items which supported the government claim that Mr Shahbaz’s family had come to Pakistan for a particular event.

He maintained that articles 8 and 15 of the 1973 Constitution debarred the government from deporting any Pakistani citizen who had a fundamental right to live in the country at his own will.

Mr Ashtar seconded the AG’s offer for the recovery of the family members through a bailiff. “I would further demand that following their production in the court they should be set at large,” the counsel said.