LAHORE, Nov 18: The Lahore High Court has declared the detention of Jama’at Al-Da’awa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed without lawful authority and ordered his release in case he is not required in any other case.

Accepting the writ petition challenging the detention of the religious leader filed by his wife, in his order announced on Monday, the court made no reference to the Punjab government plea to recover charges for the detention period at the rate of Rs10,000 per day from the detenu.

Petitioner’s counsel Nazir Ahmad Ghazi contended that any person belonging to any banned religious organization could be detained within seven days of having left it, but Hafiz Saeed had left the defunct Lashkar-i-Taiba 23 days before being taken into custody. Moreover, Article 10 of the Constitution prohibited the detention of any citizen for more than eight months in two years whereas the period of Hafiz Saeed’s detention had exceeded nine months.

He submitted that Hafiz Saeed had disappeared mysteriously soon after being freed from his first detention, and the government denied knowledge about his whereabouts when the petitioner filed a writ petition for his recovery and release. He was, however, released on Oct 30 after the petition was withdrawn from the LHC, but was again detained on Oct 31.

Additional advocate general Hanif Khatana submitted that Hafiz Saeed had been detained under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance because he had delivered a provocative speech after his release on Oct 30.

Deputy attorney general Sher Zaman said the federal government had nothing to do with the arrest and detention of Hafiz Saeed, but he supported the AAG’s contention that he should not be set at liberty.