ISLAMABAD: The wife of a serving brigadier, who was working as a director in Defence Housing Authority, Quetta and is said to be in the custody of military authorities, has asked the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench to declare her husband’s detention illegal.

Ummaira Saleem, wife of Brigadier Akhtar Subhan, said her husband was taken into custody by officials of Special Investigation Branch of the Military Police on June 22, 2023.

The case was fixed for hearing on Sept 13 and Justice Jawad Hassan of the Lahore High Court had initially raised objections during the hearing of the case that the petitioner could not seek relief from the high court as Article 199 (3) of the Constitution barred the high court from taking up the matter related to personnel of armed forces.

The petitioner’s counsel, Advocate Inamur Rahim, however, cited a number of cases in which the superior courts entertained such petitions and also set aside the orders of the military authorities.

The LHC then issued notice to the defence ministry and other respondents, and sought their replies and adjourned the hearing till Sept 14 since it was a habeas corpus petition. However, in the written order, the date of the next hearing was mentioned as Oct 6.

The petitioner filed another application on Tuesday, seeking an early hearing of the case. She cited sections 74 and 75 of Pakistan Army Act, 1952, read with Rule 23 and 24 of the Pakistan Army Act Rules, 1957, and claimed that the arrest and custody of Brig Subhan was illegal.

The petition said that the burden of the proof in a habeas corpus matter is always on the detaining authority to prove that the detention is lawful.

It requested the court to decide the case as quickly as possible. The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench will now hear the petition on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2023