PESHAWAR, Oct 6: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday directed the federal government to facilitate access of the relatives to DNA reports of those killed in the last year's Airblue plane crash.

A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel took exception to the non-submission of the plane crash inquiry report despite the court directives and ordered that the report should be submitted by Nov 16, the next date of hearing.

Deputy attorney general Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand requested the court on behalf of the federal secretary defence to allow three more months for submission of the inquiry report. However, the bench turned down the request and regretted that about six months had passed since the court had sought the inquiry report while the delaying tactics still continued. The chief justice observed that under Article 19A of the Constitution every citizen had the right to have access to information in all matters of public importance. He observed that Article 19A was the product of the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, but still the government had not been submitting the report.

The bench was hearing a writ petition filed by former MNA Marvi Memon on behalf of the family members of the deceased passengers. She had prayed the court to direct the federal government for constituting an independent board of inquiry to determine and make public the cause of the plane crash.

An Airblue flight ED 202 had crashed into Margalla Hills on July 28, 2010, killing all the 146 passengers and six crew members on board.

Advocate Umer Farooq Adam appeared along with the petitioner and contended that the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences had taken samples for conducting DNA tests over the bodies recovered from the crash site. However, he stated that several families had not yet been provided the remains of the deceased persons and around 72 bodies were buried without identification.

Mr Umer requested the court that at least the DNA reports should be made accessible to the bereaved families.

A section officer of the Ministry of Defence, Mohammad Qadeer, stated that the government had sent a letter to the manufacturing company of the crashed plane in this regard. He added that if the report was submitted to the court without the company's comments it could create complications concerning the insurance claims.

The DAG also stated that comments of the manufacturing company were important in the inquiry. On this, the bench observed that this was none of his headache to safeguard the interests of the company. It was observed that during the last hearing they had also adopted the same plea that they were awaiting certain explanations from the company.

Marvi Memon requested the court to summon the secretary defence in person, as the section officer was not conversant with the facts of the issue. She regretted that the government had been using delaying tactics in this important case.

She said that two months ago the parliamentary committee on human rights was told that the inquiry report was submitted to the prime minister, but the report had been kept away from the high court.