LAHORE: Three federal ministers of the PML-N filed a petition in the Lahore High Court on Friday against a lower court’s order for registration of an FIR against them and some other people, including the prime minister and the Punjab chief minister, over the Model Town incident of June 17.

The petition was filed by Information Minister Pervez Rasheed, Railways Minister Khwaja Saad Rafiq and Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali through Advocate Azam Nazir Tarar.

The registrar’s office fixed the petition before Justice Iftikhar Husain Shah. But the judge declined to take it up and requested the chief justice to transfer it to another bench. Acting Chief Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik fixed the petition before Justice Mahmood Maqbool Bajwa who admitted the petition and said he would take it up on Monday.

The ministers have requested the LHC to set aside the order issued by an additional district and sessions judge on Aug 16, directing the Faisal Town SHO to register the FIR for being responsible for the killing of 11 supporters of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek outside the Minhajul Quran (MQ) secretariat in Model Town.

Jawad Hamid, director administration of the secretariat, in an application nominated 21 suspects in his application, including the PML-N leaders and senior police officials.

The minister’s counsel said that MQ and PAT leaders, including Dr Tahirul Qadri, had expressed lack of trust in police and avoided taking part in investigation into the incident. They were invited and summoned by police and a joint investigation team (JIT) several times but did not respond.

Instead, the Minhajul Quran preferred to file a petition under sections 22A and 22B of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) before the district and sessions court seeking registration of an FIR against the petitioners and others.

Advocate Tarar said the order issued by the additional district and sessions judge was illegal and liable to be set aside.

Since the respondent has expressed distrust of police and JIT, filing of a plea before the sessions court was an exercise in futility.

He said the judge had not considered the fact that the version of the respondents named in the petition had been taken up by the JIT during investigation after registration of an FIR by police.

He said five policemen had been arrested during the course of the investigation and there was no justification for registration of another FIR.

The counsel alleged that the petition filed by the Minhajul Quran was politically motivated and the order issued on it by the judge was in violation of Article 4 of the constitution.

He said that by issuing the order the district and sessions judge had acted beyond his jurisdiction. The order, he added, was tantamount to dictating police and interfering in their jurisdiction.

The counsel argued that CrPC (third amendment) Ordinance of 2002 had lapsed and the lower court no longer held the power to order registration of an FIR.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2014