LAHORE, Dec 16: A Supreme Court bench is to give its ruling on the legal question whether the order of a justice of peace can be treated as a court order and whether it is superior to that of a deputy inspector-general in terms of the Police Order of 2002. The issue was raised through a petition for leave to appeal through which a cloth merchant from Faisalabad, Taj Muhammad Khan, challenged the decision of a single bench of the Lahore High Court under which the Faisalabad DIG’s order was upheld after a local sessions judges, functioning as a justice of peace, had forbidden the registration of a criminal case against the petitioner at the instance of the Lyallpur Town administration. The complainant was Abdul Hafeez Bhalla.

The justice of peace had, in the light of an inquiry report by a former DIG, directed the police that no criminal case against Taj Muhammad Khan or any other trader of the Makki Cloth Market, Karkhana Bazaar (Faisalabad), should be registered till the charges were investigated.

The succeeding DIG not only recalled the order of his predecessor in the office, but directed the registration of the case in violation of the order of the justice of peace.

Advocate Raja Abdur Rehman submitted on behalf of the petitioner that although the Police Order did not hold the justice of peace on a par with a court and no contempt of court proceedings could be initiated against the violator of that order, a justice of peace held a superior position than a DIG.

Mr Abdur Rehman also submitted before the bench, comprising Justice Khalilur Rehman Khan Ramday and Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmad, that it was the justice of peace who could order a criminal case to be registered.

Further hearing in the case was adjourned till February next year.—Correspondent