Banner case: Court issues notice to police, extends MOP officials’ bail

‘Move On Pakistan’ officials want FIR quashed

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court Monday issued a notice to the SHO of the Secretariat police station to submit his response on August 4 on a petition filed by two officials of the Move on Pakistan (MOP) seeking quashment of the FIR against them in the controversial banners case.

Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani issued the notice to the SHO on the petition of Ali Raza and Asif Iqbal challenging the registration of the case against them on charges of sedition, criminal conspiracy, calling for the imposition of martial law in the country.

Meanwhile, the court extended the interim pre-arrest bail of Raza and Iqbal till July 28.

The petitioners through their counsel Sardar Taimoor Aslam have made the state and the SHO respondents in the case.

The Secretariat police had registered the case under sections 124-A (Sedition), 120-B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy), 505-II (Statements conducing to public mischief) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code against unidentified men for inciting people against the government.

The counsel said that Sections 196 and 196-A of the Criminal Procedure Code clearly shows that offences under sections 124-A is non-cognizable and cognizance for the offences under section 120-B and 505-II could only be taken upon a complaint made by or under the authority of the federal government or a provincial government.

Aslam said that admittedly no complaint either verbal or written was made by the government and the case was registered on merely an interpretation of a police officer. He described the registration of the FIR and the proceedings “illegal.”

He said that investigation cannot be done on sedition charges as it is a non-cognizable offence and law imposes a specific bar on taking cognizance of it. “The non-compliance in the initiation of proceedings goes to the root of the entire matter,” he stated.

In his arguments, Aslam said that when the law requires a particular act to be done in a particular manner all other ways of performance are “forbidden.”

Since, he said, the mandatory provisions of the law have not been complied with and the case has been registered in violation of the same and without obtaining prior sanction of the government. Resultantly, he said, the entire proceedings are a nullity in the eyes of the law and liable to be quashed.

He prayed the court to quash the FIR.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2016.