LAHORE, July 13: Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Umar Ata Bandial dismissed as withdrawn a writ petition on Wednesday by former defence minister Habibullah Warraich seeking the recovery of his seized passport and removal of his name from the exit control list (ECL).

Warraich is one of the accused in a land scam of the National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL) and is presently on bail.

He stated in the petition that he along with his wife wanted to go abroad for medical treatment, therefore, directions be issued to the government to remove his name from ECL and return his passport. His counsel Ahmad Awais said his client wanted to withdraw the petition. The judge allowed the request and dismissed the petition as withdrawn.

MUSHARRAF: LHC Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed on Wednesday again sought a reply from the federal government on a civil miscellaneous application seeking conviction of former president Gen Pervez Musharraf (retired) under the High Treason Act of 1973.

A deputy attorney general sought more time from the court to file reply and the judge adjourned hearing till Oct 7. Advocate Rana Ilamuddin Ghazi filed the application in an already pending main petition against Gen Musharraf and said a 14-member bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Sindh High Court Bar Association vs federation of Pakistan had held that Gen Musharraf was guilty of offence of high treason.

He said that it was self-evident that Musharraf had already been convicted by the Supreme Court and only sentence was to be announced in accordance with section 2 of the high treason act of 1973 which provides life imprisonment or death sentence.

He said the case of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto provided that the high court had the power to try and punish a high state dignitary in a high profile case. Normally, sessions courts are empowered to try all cases where death sentence is pronounced but in a case of high state officials, the high court has jurisdiction as a trial court, he said.