Lahore High Court on Tuesday forwarded all applications by the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and the Pakistan Tehreek i Insaf (PTI) to the Punjab home secretary and the district coordination officer and given them two days to decide them.
Justice James Joseph directed the secretary to submit a report at the next hearing.
Counsel for the petitioners said the government was taking the decision to detain PAT and PTI political activists seriously. He said most of those detained hailed from areas in Punjab that had been badly hit by the recent floods. He requested the court to direct the government to release them.
Counsel for the government opposed his arguments and said the petition had been moved in court without contacting the Home secretary and the Lahore district coordination officer and were therefore non-maintainable.
Separately, Justice Arshad Mehmood Tabbasum of the LHC sought comments from the inspector general on September 22 regarding a petition challenging the detention of PTI and PAT workers on political grounds.
A full bench of the court comprising Justice Mehmood Ahmad Bhatti, Justice Arshad Mehmood Tabbasum and Justice Chaudhry Masood Jahangir had earlier restrained the government from detaining PTI and PAT activists.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 17th, 2014.
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