PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday took notice of the death of a common leopard in the Peshawar Zoo and directed the provincial advocate general to produce a detailed report about the cause of death and facilities provided to animals in the zoo.

A bench consisting of Justice Qaiser Rasheed and Justice Abdul Shakoor expressed annoyance at the death of the common leopard and wondered if animals were left to die in the zoo.

Justice Qaiser Rasheed questioned whether the wildlife department wasn’t fulfilling its responsibilities that animals had been dying in the zoo.

The bench asked provincial advocate general Shumail Butt to show up and when the latter did so, Justice Qaiser warned that the court would order the zoo closure if the administration didn’t take good care of the animals kept there.

The bench wondered why animals had been kept at the zoo when the administration could not take care of them.

Warns zoo closure will be ordered if admin doesn’t care for animals

The bench directed the AG to submit a detailed report to the court explaining the cause of death of the leopard as well as provision of facilities to other animals.

It observed that in past, it had issued direction to the chief conservator (wildlife) to improve facilities in the zoo and take care of animals kept there.

The newspapers had reported the death of a common leopard, who suffered from a liver problem, in the zoo. The zoo management told reporters that the leopard had died a natural death and that no negligence was involved in it.

In 2018, a valuable snow leopard had also died in the zoo.

ADJOURNED: Another bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar adjourned the hearing into a petition seeking the disqualification of Prime Minister Imran Khan on multiple grounds.

As the lawyers continued to observe a strike, nothing noteworthy happened in the hearing.

The petition was filed in 2018 by petitioner Inamullah Khan, a leader of Justice and Democratic Party of former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who had lost to Imran Khan in the 2018 general elections on NA-35 Bannu.

Few weeks ago, an application was filed on behalf of Imran Khan that the petition was not maintainable as the petitioner had concealed the declaration of Supreme Court regarding applicant Imran Khan whereby he was declared ‘sadiq and amen’ under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

The court has to decide the application about the maintainability of the petition.

The petitioner has mainly based his petition on the ground that during the 2018 general elections, Mr Imran neither mentioned the name of his alleged daughter in nomination papers nor disclosed the assets of his current wife.

The application filed on behalf of Mr Imran contended that the prime minister had won the NA-35 seat but had vacated the same so there was no need to file the petition.

It added that the petition was an election matter against the judgment passed by the returning officer at a pre-election stage and the electoral laws provided remedies against pre-election grievances under sections 8 and 9 of Elections Act, 2017, which had not been availed by the petitioner and therefore, the petition was liable to be dismissed.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2020