LAHORE: A Lahore High Court division bench on Tuesday sought final arguments from the Punjab government and counsel for Jamatud Dawa on a petition challenging detention of the JuD chief and four leaders.

Earlier, Advocate A.K. Dogar said the government detained JuD chief Hafiz Saeed, his aides Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid on US and Indian pressure. He said India had always been trying to cause harm to Saeed.

The counsel argued that a UN resolution was used in the past to detain the JuD chief and the court had set the detention aside in 2009. The government had failed to produce any evidence against Saeed or his organisation. He said there were ulterior motives and mala fide intention behind the impugned act of the government.

Justice Syed Kazim Raza Shamsi observed that Section 11-EEE(1) of Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 required the government to furnish reasons for the detention of a citizen. The government had no evidence that the petitioners were a risk to security of Pakistan, and merely on the basis of UN resolutions their liberty could not be curtailed, counsel said.

The bench adjourned further hearing till March 27 directing the petitioners’ counsel and a provincial law officer to come up with final arguments.

Explanation sought: The LHC directed the Punjab environment secretary to submit an explanation about non-implementation of an order for regularisation of department’s employees.

Shazia Pervaiz and others had filed a contempt of court petition against secretary Saif Anjum for defying the court order.

The petitioners’ counsel argued the high court had last year directed the secretary to regularise the employees but the order had not been complied with so far. He submitted that the project in which the employees (the petitioners) were appointed was converted from development to non-development side which meant they were supposed to be regularised.

He stated the secretary ignored the court order and thus committed contempt of court. He asked the court to take action against the secretary. The court directed the secretary to submit an explanation by April 5.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2017