LAHORE, Jan 27: The Lahore High Court begins on Monday (today) the hearing of a suo motu reference against the Punjab Health Secretary for initiating ‘supra-judicial’ proceedings to save his convicted brother.

Justice Khwaja Muhammad Sharif will begin preliminary hearing of the reference against secretary Hasan Waseem Afzal and others. The court is likely to summon all the people concerned for the regular hearing of the reference instituted to have a judicial probe that why the convicts have not so far been put behind the bar and how they are still drawing salaries from the health department while the doctors who helped the court reach any conclusion are served with show-cause notices under the removal from services ordinance, 2000.

The LHC has taken a suo moto notice in any incident reported in the press after a long time. The last time the court took a suo moto notice when a driver set on fire his bus in protest against the police high-handedness in Niazi Chowk, Lahore.

The brief history of the case is that on Dec 12, 2000, a bailiff raided the Sambrail police station on a habeas corpus petition filed with the court of Khwaja Muhammad Sharif by a citizen for the recovery of his nephew Nadeem Iqbal from the illegal confinement of the police.

After going through the bailiff report and seeing the victim himself, who was not even in a position to stand on his feet, the judge sent him to the office of the surgeon medico-legal, Punjab, for examination.

In their report, Dr Nadeem Afzal Ashrafi and Dr Afzal, however, stated that there was no mark of physical torture on Iqbal’s body.

When the petitioner challenged the report, the court directed the then medical superintendent of the Mayo Hospital to constitute a board to re-examine the victim. The board reported five marks of injuries caused by a blunt weapon.

The board findings were however contested by Dr Ashrafi and Dr Afzal who accused its members of being biased against them. The court directed the then health secretary to constitute another board.

The second board confirmed the findings of the first board. Thereupon, the court convicted both the doctors and awarded them a sentence of five years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000 each under sections 192, 193, 197, 201, 219 and 266 (read with section 109) PPC.

The convicts filed appeals in the Supreme Court against the decision. The apex court upheld the high court decision but reduced the sentence to one year RI for each of the convicts. Their review petition was also dismissed.

The trial court (LHC) directed the Lahore district magistrate under letter 16693 (dated: June 18, 2001) to ensure the re-arrest of the convicts, who, by that time, were on bail. The Lahore DM under letter 13302 (Dated: June 27, 2001) directed the Lahore SSP to implement the court orders. But, ironically, none of the convicts has so far been arrested. Instead, reportedly they are drawing salaries from the exchequer.

In a surprizing move after the court decision, Dr Zainab Parveen, one of the members of the second board, claimed through an affidavit that she was pressurized by other board members to sign a wrong medico-legal certificate. By that time, convict Nadeem Afzal Ashrafi’s brother Waseem Hasan Afzal had taken over as the provincial health secretary..

Mr Hasan Waseem Afzal constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the then surgeon medico-legal, Dr Arshaf Awan, to look into the affidavit. It may be pertinent to mention here that Dr Awan was a defence witness (DW 1) in the case in which Dr Asrhafi was convicted.

On committee’s report, the other three members of the second board were asked to show cause under the removal from services ordinance by the Punjab government.

On news reports, justice Khwaja Muhammad Sharif sent a suo motu reference to the LHC chief justice. The CJ granted approval and fixed Jan 28 as the date for hearing of the reference.

Meanwhile, Prof Dr Pervez a Rana, head of the King Edward Medical College Forensic department and a member of the second board, told Dawn that he would request the court to consider him and other members (of the board) as party to the suo moto reference against the health secretary.—NS