PESHAWAR: A writ petition was filed in the Peshawar High Court on Monday challenging the appointment of former chief justice Nasirul Mulk as the caretaker prime minister, claiming that he was not ‘righteous’ and ‘honest’.

The petitioner, Shahid Orakzai, a freelance journalist, claims that the caretaker prime minister, when he was a judge of the Peshawar High Court, had granted bail to a ‘hired assassin’ named Bahadur Khan in 1998 involved in the murder of his (petitioner’s) brother Major Kahlid Saeed Orakzai.

He stated that in 2002, Mr Mulk had dismissed his petition seeking cancellation of bail granted to four other accomplices of Bahadur, who was also absconding at that time.

The petitioner requested the high court to declare that the respondent (retired Justice Nasirul Mulk) had betrayed the Code of Criminal Procedure by granting bail to a person who was described as a hired assassin by a full bench of the Supreme Court.

He requested the court to remove the respondent from the office of the prime minister. He contended that to be a prime minister of Pakistan, under Article 62 of the Constitution, a person shall be sagacious, righteous, non-profligate and honest.

The petitioner stated that his slain brother was attacked on Sept 4, 1997 and he expired at CMH Rawalpindi on Sept 12, 1997.He stated that even though he had nominated Bahadur Khan for the said murder before a judicial magistrate in Kohat, Mr Mulk declared that the statement would not constitute reasonable grounds that the accused had committed the crime.

He claims that the said accused after getting bail remained absconder for 12 years during which he had killed around 100 other persons.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2018