SHC seeks report on Model Town episode

Wants to examine it minutely; Punjab govt counsel opposes making it public

LAHORE:  

The Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered the Punjab government on Monday to produce the report prepared by Justice Najafi’s inquiry tribunal on the June 17, 2014 Model Town incident.

The full bench of the LHC, headed by Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh, took up an appeal filed by the Punjab government against the order passed by a single bench, asking it to make it public.

Khawaja Haris, the Punjab government’s lawyer, contended that the report on the Model Town incident had no judicial significance.

He pointed out that the government had ordered to hold the inquiry to ascertain facts about the incident to avoid the recurrence of such incidents in the future.

Indicating that the trial of the Model Town incident was still pending in a court, he said that publicising the report would affect the trial’s outcome.



Contending that the government’s version was not heard by the single bench of Justice Syyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, he said that the judge had authored the decision without doing so. He requested the court to set aside the single bench’s order.

Meanwhile, the counsel for the petitioner insisted that the government neither wanted to make the inquiry report public nor highlight reasons for withholding the report. He pleaded that people, whose relatives had been killed or injured in the incident, had the right to access the inquiry report.

The judge directed the government to produce the inquiry report before the court on the next hearing, adding that it would be minutely examined in the chamber.

The judge also directed counsels for the petitioners to present their arguments on the next hearing of the case.

Terming it illegal, the government had opposed the single bench’s order during the previous hearing, saying that the report could create a law and order situation.



The matter, the government contended, should have been referred to the full bench which was hearing the same matter. It said that there was no reason for the single bench to hear the case.

Citing six cases pending before the full bench, lawyers representing the government argued that a single bench should not have allowed the petition in such a situation.  They requested the court to set aside the single bench’s order.

On Sept 21, a single bench comprising Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi ordered the Punjab Home department to issue the inquiry report to relatives of people affected by the incident. The judge held that it was judicial proceedings and constitutionally, the aggrieved had the right to know who the wrongdoers were.

At least 14 people died and 85 others were injured in a clash between police and PAT workers over the issue of barriers erected outside the Minhajul Quran Secretariat in Lahore in June of 2014.