LAHORE: Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Chief Justice Aalia Neelum on Wednesday summoned Punjab Inspector General (IG) Rao Abdul Kareem in a contempt of court petition against personnel of the Chung police.

The chief justice was hearing a petition filed by citizen Mian Muhammad Jamil, with Superintendent of Police (SP) Abdullah appearing before the court on behalf of the Chung police.

The petitioner’s counsel, Advocate Shahbaz Bhatti, informed the judge that an LHC single bench had suspended a 2021 order by a sessions court of registering a first information report (FIR) against his client.

Despite the single bench ruling, the counsel alleged, the police registered a case against the petitioner unlawfully.

When Justice Neelum asked SP Abdullah to read the FIR aloud, he was unable to properly read or narrate its contents.

“Why is the FIR not readable? I cannot understand what has been written in it,” the chief justice remarked.

Expressing her displeasure over the manner in which the complaint had been written, Justice Neelum observed that such FIRs were not even readable.

“The entire Punjab is suffering; this is the situation everywhere,” she remarked.

The chief justice also sarcastically observed that the writing in the FIR looked like “flies”. “Even the size of the flies is bigger [than this],” she quipped.

Justice Neelum then summoned IG Kareem in person along with the relevant record for Thursday.

The IG was also summoned for Thursday in a separate case, where the chief justice rejected an inquiry report submitted in a contempt of court matter against the Lahore capital city police officer (CCPO).

Justice Neelum was hearing a petition filed by citizen Momin Khan, who alleged that police officials were harassing him despite court orders.

The petitioner’s counsel contended that an earlier petition against police harassment had been referred to the CCPO for redressal, but the police continued to subject him to harassment.

Asserting that the police failed to comply with the court’s directions, the counsel sought contempt proceedings against the CCPO.