LAHORE, Dec 4: A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday permitted the stay of Scottish girl Misbah Iram Rana in Pakistan till Dec 8 on a verbal request by counsel Dr Abdul Basit who submitted that the teenaged girl be allowed to stay with the father till the court decided about the intra-court appeal.

The court raised the objection on the maintainability of the ICA, filed by the girl’s father Sajjad Ahmad Rana, saying that the ICA was not maintainable because it challenged a decision which was given (on Nov 29) in a habeas corpus petition filed by the mother of the girl, Louise Anne Fairley.

The court observed that in such a situation a petition for leave to appeal should have been submitted to the Supreme Court as the ICA was not a correct procedure.

The appellant’s counsel submitted that the Nov 29 judgment was pronounced in all the petitions which were to decide the custody and parentage of the girl. He submitted that since the petition in a civil court about the custody of the girl stood infructuous the moment the decision of the single bench was announced, this meant that the judgment of Nov 29 did not dispose of the habeas corpus petition alone. As such, the ICA was maintainable, he submitted.

The division bench would first decide the question of maintainability of the ICA on Dec 8 before taking up the ICA on its merit. —Correspondent