PESHAWAR, Feb 11: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday ruled that the provincial law minister had no powers to delete provisions of Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, from FIRs of different cases.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Qaim Jan Khan accepted a writ petition filed by a landlord of Charssada district, Haroon Rashid, and remanded the case to the anti-terrorism court.

The court ruled that the ATC had the powers to transfer cases to regular courts if it considered that it had no jurisdiction in the case. The petitioner had registered an FIR against some tenants, charging them with illegally occupying his land. The police had also included section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act in the FIR.

In 2002 the then provincial minister had convened a meeting in which the fate of about two dozens FIRs registered in Charssada district under the ATA were decided.

The meeting had decided to delete section 7 of the ATA from the FIRs. Later on, the government had issued order for deleting that provision from all the FIRs registered against tenants. The government had removed that section from about two dozens FIRs all registered in the Charssada district.

Advocate Qazi Muhammad Anwer appeared for the petitioner and argued that the law minister had no powers to delete that section from the FIR. He contended that the minister had overstepped his powers by ordering the deletion.

Mr Anwer argued that the anti-terrorism court had the powers to transfer a case to regular court. He stated that under section 23 of the Anti-Terrorism Act if the ATC was of the opinion that the offence was not a scheduled offence, it should transfer the case for trial of such offence to any regular court.