MQM ban case: Law and justice ministry submits petition in SHC

Claims no ground is made for impleading it in the matter

KARACHI: The ministry of law and justice informed on Thursday the Sindh High Court (SHC) that it had nothing to do with banning the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) as the issue is related to the interior ministry.

The law and justice ministry submitted this before a two-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, during hearing of a petition seeking ban on the MQM and disqualification of its legislators over alleged anti-state speech of its London-based founder, Altaf Hussain, at a hunger strike held outside Karachi Press Club on August 22, this year.

Therefore, the court repeated notices to the interior ministry and other respondents to file their comments by the next date of the hearing.

Moulvi Iqbal Haider, a practising lawyer, had approached the court seeking direction for the federal ministries of law, justice and interior and provincial authorities to ban the party.

Filing its comments, the ministry of law and justice argued that the petition exclusively pertains to the respondents, who have already been impleaded as necessary parties, whereas impleading the answering respondent (law and justice ministry) was unnecessary and unwarranted as no ground is made out for impleading it in the matter.

It maintained that through an instant petition, the petitioner has challenged the speech delivered by Hussain on August 22, 2016, and prayed that the respondents may be directed to take legal action against him and the respondents No 9 to 81 (MQM legislators).

"From the perusal of the petition, it appears that the issues involved therein substantially and exclusively related to the ministry of interior and other respondents, which have already been impleaded as necessary parties in the instant petition," it added.

In his petition, Haider had said that the MQM legislators had neither agitated nor raised any slogans against their party's founder; however, for sake of saving their own skin, they disassociated themselves from the speech.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2016.