PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday sought details from the federal and provincial governments and their law enforcing agencies of the cases registered against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader and a member of the Punjab Assembly, Mian Mohammad Aslam Iqbal, within a week.

A bench consisting of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Sahibzada Asadullah directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to also provide information about the cases or inquiries against the petitioner, Aslam Iqbal, who has sought directives of the court for the government about details of the cases related to him.

The petitioner’s counsel, Ali Azim Afridi, requested the bench to grant interim pre-arrest bail to his client in cases about which they had so far not been provided any information.

Let the government first submit the details after which the bench would decide whether to grant him bail in those cases or not, the bench observed.

The counsel stated that the petitioner belonged to Punjab and had also remained a provincial minister. He added that the petitioner was an MPA and scores of cases had been registered against him after May 9 and 10 protests.

He stated that most of these cases were registered on political grounds for victimising the petitioner.

He stated that the petitioner now wanted to approach the relevant court to get relief but for that purpose he needed to know about the cases pending against him.

Mr Afridi stated that the petitioner apprehended that he would be arrested on way to the court concerned.

Additional Attorney General Sanaullah Khan objected to the petition and contended that he belonged to Lahore and he should have approached the court there.

He questioned how could the petitioner approach this high court when cases pertained to other provinces.

The bench observed there was nothing to hide in providing information about cases against the petitioner.

When the bench inquired from Mr Afridi whether the petitioner was present in the courtroom, he replied that he was busy in marriage ceremony of his daughter on Monday night due to which he could not turn up in the case. He assured that he would appear on next date.

He stated that earlier after the Feb 8 polls the high court had granted protective bail to the petition in 18 of the cases against him. He added that now they wanted to know about any other cases against him of which he had no knowledge.

MNA CASE: A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Syed Arshad Ali issued notice to the federal government seeking its response to a petition of PTI leader and MNA Ali Khan Jadoon challenging placement of his name on the Provisional National Identification List (PNIL) by the FIA.

The bench directed the government to submit its reply within seven days.

Advocate Afridi appeared for Mr Jadoon and contended that the petitioner was an MNA elected in the Feb general elections.

He stated that after the May 9 protests the petitioner was placed on the PNIL due to which he couldn’t travel abroad.

He argued that the court had already granted bail to the petitioner in cases registered against him and keeping his name in the list was illegal and unconstitutional.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2024