08 January 2005	Saturday	26 Ziqa'ad 1425

LAHORE, Jan 7: The tendency among some government officials to defy the Lahore High Court orders persists as is evident from a good number of petitions filed against such functionaries, predominantly belonging to the police department, in 2004.

As many as 1,264 Criminal Original petitions were filed during the year at the high court's principal seat in Lahore alone and more than 90 per cent of them complained that police had failed to comply with the LHC orders.

Nevertheless, the number of such petitions has been on the lower side compared to 2003 when 1,741 Criminal Original cases were instituted at the principal seat.

Still, some LHC officers believe that filing of fewer petitions does not mean an improvement in the officials' behaviour because a number of petitioners do not file Criminal Original petitions and strike compromise with the offending officials.

Police, they say, are always in a better position to silence the petitioner. In many such cases, the high court initiated contempt of court proceedings against the police and other officials.

A Criminal Original petition is usually filed under section 561-A of the CrPC after the complainant feels that he or she is being denied the relief given by court. Under the law, the petitioner seeks a punitive action against the official concerned.

Such petitions are also submitted under the contempt of court law and the constitution. The courts have also been taking suo moto action against deliberate defiance of officials under their jurisdiction under the constitution.

LANDMARK: The removal of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance from the statute book has been a landmark judgment delivered by a full bench of the LHC in 2004. The order of winding up of the Taj Company, which had been publishing the Holy Quran and other religious books for seven decades, is another landmark decision of the year.

The LHC also received an election petition against Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz during the year. However, not a single election petition, pending against foreign minister Mian Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, Punjab Assembly speaker Muhammad Afzal Sahi and a number of federal and provincial ministers, and MNAs and MPAs, could be decided.

The year also witnessed writ petitions being filed against the deportation of Mian Shahbaz Sharif from Lahore to Jeddah, the appointment of 10 more judges to the LHC, commutation of the death sentence of journalist Rehmat Shah Afridi to life-imprisonment, the initiative taken on the sale of four steel units of the Ittefaq Group of Industries, and declaring as illegal the State Bank of Pakistan circular to national banks to furnish it with the personal information of the depositors earning a profit of Rs10,000 and above.

Similarly, the issue of President Pervez Musharraf's retaining the office of the chief of army staff kept ringing the court proceedings in 2004.