LAHORE, Feb 23: Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry of the Lahore High Court on Friday ordered the traffic police DIG to appear personally on March 2 on a petition against illegal operation of vehicle lifters.

Earlier, all the contractors appeared in the court and produced the copies of their agreements with the City District Government Lahore under which they were empowered to lift the wrongly parked vehicles and imposing fine to the owners.

Questioning legal status of the operations, the CJ had observed that prima facie all the contracts granted by the CDGL seemed to be illegal.

Petitioner-lawyer M D Tahir had submitted that the cars were lifted in the absence of owners. The operation was illegal under Motor Vehicles Rules, 1969, and Motor Vehicle Ordinance, 1965.

He said this was also a violation of articles 4 and 25 of the constitution. He appealed to the court to declare forklifting of vehicles illegal.