LAHORE, Feb 24: The Lahore High Court on Monday issued show-cause notice to the Punjab home secretary for failing to comply with the court orders regarding the release of three members of Khwaja family from detention under the Security of Pakistan Act, 1952.
Dr Khizar Ali, Dr Umar Karar and Muhammad Usman, the three ordered to be released last week, had filed a contempt of court petition against jail authorities and the home secretary for having failed to release them despite court orders.
Justice M. Javed Buttar showed dissatisfaction on the para-wise comments filed by the provincial additional secretary on behalf of home secretary to the contempt petition.
Punjab Advocate General Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi was also issued a notice on the petition for Feb 24 to assist the court.
Earlier, assistant advocate-general Jalaluddin Khurd presented an order of the provincial home secretary regarding the detention of petitioners under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order, 1960. The order dated Feb 17, said: “The petitioners had been detained under the Section 3 for three months on the grounds that they had allegedly been facilitating certain foreigners involved in terrorist activities. There is a strong likelihood, if set at large, the petitioners would be actively involved in creating unrest among people besides disrupting the law and order.”
In the detention orders, the provincial government, however, created a provision for the petitioners to file a representation before the authorities concerned against such orders.
The state counsel also furnished the reply of the provincial home secretary to the petition refuting the allegations of committing contempt of court. It was contended that the three petitioners were currently detained legally for 90 days by the provincial government in exercise of powers conferred upon it under section 3 of MPO.
“The quoted section is a provincial law and the provincial government is fully competent to use powers under this law,” read the reply filed on behalf of home secretary.
The counsel refused to accept the argument of the petitioners’ counsel that the copies of the new detention order had not been served on them and claimed that the impugned order was served on them on Feb 17.
He submitted that the petitioners, along with Dr Ahmad Javed Khwaja and Ahmad Naveed Khwaja, had been shifted back to the Kot Lakhpat Jail on Feb 19 from Chuhng sub-jail. This submission was made in response to an allegation that the five detainees were being kept in Chuhng which was not a regular jail working under the control of superintendent of Central Jail, Lahore.
The court observed that it would like to take up the matter of petitioners’ detention at Chuhng sub-jail on the next hearing and issued notice to the superintendent of Central Jail.
In his arguments, petitioners’ counsel Hamid Khan alleged that both the jail authorities and the provincial home secretary had committed a contempt of court by not releasing them despite its orders.
“The new detention order has been passed clearly with mala fide intentions and meant to defeat the execution of the petitioners’ release ordered by the court,” argued the counsel.
He claimed that the jail authorities had informed the family of the petitioners on Feb 17 that they had been detained under 16 MPO while the detention order produced before the court had been passed under Section 3. There was a clear discrepancy between the versions of the home department and that of the jail authorities exposing the mala fide intentions of the state, he argued.
AHMAD JAVED: A division bench issued notice to the Punjab additional advocate-general for Feb 26 on a petition challenging the orders of the provincial home department for holding the trial of Dr Ahmad Javed and Ahmad Naveed in jail.
An anti-terrorism court had allowed the trial of the two petitioners in jail endorsing the orders of the home department already passed in this regard.
After hearing preliminary arguments from petitioners’ counsel Pervez Inayat Malik, Justice Tassadaq Husain Jilani and Bashir A. Mujahid sought legal assistance from the state counsel. The bench, however, refused to stay the proceedings of jail trial during the pendency of the petition.
Mr Malik submitted that the home department had no authority to order his clients’ trial in jail. He argued that under Section 15 (2) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, it was the sole discretion of the trial court to decide as to whether petitioners could be tried in jail and home department could not interfere in this matter on
its own.