PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court was told by the ministry of defence that a video footage related to the alleged misbehaviour of the army personnel with a high court judge in Bannu cantonment area was not released by it and that it believed in the independence of judiciary and respected it a lot.

Appearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Mrs Irshad Qaisar, additional attorney general Syed Attique Shah said the defence secretary had responded to a contempt petition stating his ministry regretted the surfacing of the said video footage but announced it didn’t release the footage.

He said the reply also stated that the ministry believed in the independence of the judiciary and superior courts and held them in high esteem.

The additional attorney general said the secretary had assured that a committee would be formed having representatives of armed forces, lawyers and judges so that in future, lawyers and judges did not face any inconvenience at checkposts.

Assures high court judges won’t face inconvenience at security checkposts in future

The bench was hearing a contempt of court petition filed by the additional registrar of PHC’s Circuit Bench at Bannu against the concerned personnel deputed at Muslim Gate Check Post, where the occurrence had taken place.

The bench also heard some other petitions filed by different lawyers’ organizations regarding functioning of military check posts in Peshawar and Bannu.

The said incident took place on May 27 when a judge of the PHC, Justice Ikramullah Khan, was on way to Bannu Cantonment along with police escort vehicle. The two vehicles were allegedly stopped by the security personnel and despite a policeman in the escort vehicle disembark from his vehicle and introduced the judge the security personnel insisted that the judge should show his service card.

Vice chairman of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council Ahmad Farooq Khattak , representative of Bannu Bar Association Anwarul Haq, Regional Police Officer of Bannu, Mohammad Tahir Khan, additional advocate general Waqar Ahmad Khan, a representative of defence ministry Colonel Falak Naz, and others appeared before the bench.

During course of proceedings the chief justice observed that the security situation in the country was precarious and instead of personal interests they had to think in terms of national interest. He added that they had taken up hearing of this case for the sake of prestige of the institution and not for that of any individual.

Justice Irshad Qaiser also observed that despite having flag on their official vehicle and police guards with them they had been stopped at check posts.

The representative of Bannu Bar Association stated that despite the taking of notice by the high court of the said incident the security personnel deputed at check posts had still been behaving with the lawyers in an inappropriate manner. He stated that they had wait for hours at check posts and their precious time got wasted.

Ahmad Farooq Khattak stated that the situation in Bannu had not changed as long queues of vehicles could be seen at check posts.

Lawyers Shumail Butt and Sardar Ali Raza stated that the officials of Cantonment Board in Peshawar had issued special stickers to vehicles, which was an illegal practice as such provision was not available in any law.

Advocate Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah, who appeared for a petitioner, said the Bannu station commander in his comments had insisted that they had not been stopping anyone from entering cantonment area.

However, he added that despite those comments, lawyers had not been permitted to enter the cantonment area for not having the prescribed stickers on their vehicles.

The bench fixed July 29 for next hearing into the cases directing petitioners to file replies to the comments filed by different respondents, including the defence ministry, station commanders of Bannu and Peshawar cantonment areas, and others.

Meanwhile, the bench issued non-bailable arrest warrants of an anchor of a private television channel, Ahmad Qureshi, who had aired a programme on the said incident.

As the anchor didn’t attend the contempt case proceedings against him, the bench decided to issue arrest warrants for him.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2015

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