LAHORE, Oct 23: The Punjab government has decided not to call into question the Oct 18 verdict of a single bench of the Lahore High Court and to withdraw the intra-court appeal (ICA) against the appointment of government advisers.
A handout issued here on Sunday said the ICA was not filed by the provincial government and Punjab Advocate-General Muhammad Aftab Iqbal Chaudhry had moved the LHC in an ICA on his own.
The LHC registrar office record does not, however, correspond with the position taken by the provincial government. The record says the intra-court appeal was filed on Saturday (Oct 21) on behalf of Sara Aslam, the deputy secretary of the cabinet wing in the Services and General Administration, and the advocate-general affixed his signatures as the principal law officer of the province which is a normal practice.
Titled as the Government of the Punjab Vs Shah Ahmad Khan, the registrar office registered the ICA at “No 299 of 2006 in writ petition No 16,810 of 2005”.
The office treated the ICA as ‘urgent’ and fixed it before the division bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Muzammil Khan and Justice Syed Shabbar Raza Razvi, on serial number 1 of the DB’s cause list for Oct 26, the first day after the Eidul Fitr holidays.
The ICA held petitioner Malik Shah Ahmad, a local prayer leader, as the main respondent with 27 others as pro forma respondents against whom no relief was sought.
The pro forma respondents included the 16 advisers to the Punjab government whose appointment was declared illegal by Justice Mian Hamid Farooq through the judgment of Oct 18. Six advisers to the chief minister and four special assistants were also made respondents in the ICA.
Independent sources say the staff of the advocate-general’s office filed the appeal in his absence from the office on Saturday. The AG is learnt to have prepared the ICA soon after the LHC’s single bench announced its decision as the provincial government directed him to do so ‘at the earliest’.
His office also applied for the certified copy of the judgment. He had, however, not consulted Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and thus kept the file in his office for consultation with the chief minister. But as he was not available in the office towards the end of the working hours, the staff thought that the ‘urgent’ ICA should be filed before Eidul Fitr holidays begin.
Now that the government has decided not to call into question the Oct 18 decision or any of its part, the advocate-general will seek the permission of the division bench for the withdrawal of the ICA when the court will resume its function on Thursday.