LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti has constituted a full bench to decide several long pending petitions including three filed by lawyers who are no more.

These include pleas seeking disqualification of then prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and former presidents retired Gen Pervez Musharraf and Asif Ali Zardari.

Advocate Rana Ilamuddin Ghazi had filed petitions against Musharraf and Zardari and Advocate Shahid Naseem Gondal and Advocate Allah Bakhsh Gondal against Gilani.

These petitions filed from 2010 to 2012 were last heard by the LHC in 2017. All the three lawyers passed away during the pendency of their petitions.

Pleas against Gilani, Musharraf and Zardari; three of the lawyers have passed away

Senior lawyer A.K Dogar who was the counsel for Advocate Ghazi in one of the petitioners passed away last year. The petition against Musharraf had sought treason proceedings against him for imposing emergency in the country.

In another petition, the court was asked to disqualify Zardari for holding political office of the PPP while being in office of the president.

Against Gilani, the petitioners said he continued to hold office of the prime minister despite his conviction under contempt of court charge by the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Bhatti will head the full bench along with Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan and Justice Shujaat Ali Khan. The bench would resume its proceedings on Monday.

Mufti Aziz case: Former Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) leader Mufti Azizur Rehman has approached the sessions court for post-arrest bail in a case of sexually abusing a student of his madressah.

A judicial magistrate recently denied bail to the cleric.

Challenging the decision of the magistrate, Rehman’s counsel Safdar Shaheen Pirzada pleads in the petition that the order is based on personal observation, which is not warranted by law because the court miserably failed to appreciate the evidence and the documents available on record.

He argues that the allegations against the petitioner are bogus and enormous. He alleges that the complainant is hand in glove with the opponents of the petitioner at the seminary.

He says no time and date to make video of the alleged incident has been mentioned in the FIR but the falsity has been proved in the report of the forensic science agency.

The counsel argues that the investigation is completed and the petitioner in any manner is not required for the purpose of investigation and as such no useful purpose would be served by keeping him behind bars.

North Cantonment police had registered the first information report on charges of sexual assault and criminal intimidation against Mufti Rehman on the complaint of Sabir Shah, the student of Jamia Manzoorul Islam, Cantonment.

The student had shared a video clip of the sexual assault as a proof with police and the administration of the seminary.

In his complaint, the student alleged that Rehman got him and another student expelled on the charge of cheating in examinations of Wafaqul Madaris for three years.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2021