19 May 2004	Wednesday	28 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

PESHAWAR, May 18: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday directed the lawyer of a detained Afghan journalist to assist the court in determining if a corps commander could be made a party in a constitutional petition.

A two-member bench of the high court, comprising Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi, fixed Wednesday for deciding the maintainability of the petition filed by Mr Abdullah, a cousin of Sami Yousafzai.

The petitioner challenged the continuous detention of Sami Yousafzai, special correspondent of the weekly Newsweek and his driver Muhammad Saleem, who were taken into custody on April 21 near Bannu.

The bench, which took up the petition for preliminary hearing on Tuesday, at the very outset of the proceedings, objected about inclusion of commander of the XI Corps, Pakistan Army, as respondent in the petition.

The court observed that under Article 199 of the Constitution, the corps commander could not be made party in a petition seeking enforcement of a fundamental right. The bench inquired from the petitioner's counsel, Kamran Arif, under what law the commander could be included as respondent in the petition.

The bench directed him to produce a case-law in this regard on Wednesday. The respondents in the petition are: the state through the NWFP's advocate-general, the federation of Pakistan through the secretary of the defence division and Commander XI Corps, Pakistan Army.

The petitioner has prayed the court to direct the respondents to produce the detainees before the court. He further prayed to declare the arrest and detention of both the detainees without lawful authority and of no legal effect. The petitioner has requested the court to issue directives that the two detainees may not be removed from its territorial jurisdiction.