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| December 29, 2005 | Thursday | Ziqa’ad 26, 1426 |
SC disposes of plea on bus fire incident
ISLAMABAD, Dec 28: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked two lawyers who had invited the attention of the court through an application towards the December 11 Lahore bus inferno to approach the Lahore High Court.
The three-member bench comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar and Justice M. Javed Buttar disposed of the matter and directed the lawyers to file a petition under Article 199 (high court’s jurisdiction) of the Constitution before the LHC.
The two tax solicitors — Mohammad Azhar and Ahmed Imran — had written a jointly requested the chief justice to take notice of the bus fire incident in Ghaziabad, Lahore, which erupted because of fire crackers.
At least 50 passengers returning from a wedding party were burnt to death when fire crackers being carried on the crowded bus exploded.
Advocate Mohammad Azhar maintained that he had approached the Supreme Court since the apex court had been taking suo motu notice on public interest cases. This incident is directly related with the interest of the general public because it involved criminal negligence and apathy of government departments, he said before the court.
However, the chief justice observed that a suo motu notice was taken only in cases where there was no direct representation of the aggrieved party. The Lahore bus fire case is an isolated incident and can not be generalized into public interest, he observed.
Deputy Attorney General Naheeda Mehboob Illahi and Assistant Advocate General Punjab Afshan Ghazanfar opposed the maintainability of the application.
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