LAHORE, July 26: Declining to grant leave to appeal in a petition, the Supreme Court has held that a person cannot be penalized twice in one offence.

Comprising Justice Falak Sher and Justice Syed Tasaddaq Husain Jilani, the apex court bench observed that a person already released after having undergone the prison term, could not be made to face another notice in the same case.

The court dismissed a leave to appeal moved by Mahmoodul Hasan praying to the court for the enhancement of the punishment of Ata Elahi who killed his son Ali Gohar in Multan on Oct 6, 1995. An inquiry from the Central Jail, Multan, revealed that the convict had already been released after completing his prison term. Ata Elahi was, on Nov 30, 1998, sentenced to death by a sessions court of Multan in the murder. He moved the Lahore High Court in an appeal and his capital punishment was commuted into life imprisonment in 2002.

CATTLE MARKET: Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday summoned the administrator of the Allama Iqbal Town Municipal Administration to explain if steps were being taken to shift the cattle market from the residential areas of the Sabzazar Colony. The hearing of the contempt of court petition, moved by the president of the Sabzazar Colony Welfare Society Saeed Ahmad Aaasi, has now been adjourned till after the summer vacations.