LAHORE: A Lahore High Court full bench on Thursday asked the counsel for the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) to submit reasons and record which he had claimed was enough for the trial court to summon Sharif brothers and several members of the federal and provincial cabinets in a private complaint about the 2014 Model Town incident.

The bench headed by Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan was hearing appeals moved by the parties in the trial court’s proceedings, when Advocate Azhar Siddique representing the PAT argued that the anti-terrorism court seized with the private complaint of the party had not summoned 12 persons (all parliamentarians of PML-N) nominated as accused by the complainant.

He pointed out that the court had just summoned 125 officials of police and district government for their trial. He urged the bench to set aside the decision of the trial court and admit the complaint also against the political leaders.

“What was that record/evidence against the political leaders, which the trial court ignored?” the bench asked the lawyer.

Advocate Siddique said the complainant was unable to present the record before the trial court, which had been collected later.

“How can we examine new evidence at this stage?” observed the bench and directed the counsel to submit the complete record previously presented before the trial court.

Earlier, Prosecutor General Ehtesham Qadir Shah told the bench that the accused persons had been indicted by the trial court in the private complaint while statements of the witnesses were recorded. He said the PAT appeal was not maintainable at this stage of the proceedings.

The bench adjourned the hearing for Friday (today) and directed the PAT’s counsel to come up with the record.

Justice Aalia Neelum and Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem were the other members of the full bench.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar had taken suo motu notice of the delayed proceedings in cases related to the Model Town incident and directed the high court to decide all relevant appeals within two weeks.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2018