Torture in jail: Prisoner to appeal over ADSJ’s ‘illegal’ order

‘A judge cannot suspend the orders of another judge of the same rank’.

LAHORE:

A Kot Lakhpat Jail prisoner has vowed to move the Lahore High Court to review an additional district and sessions judge’s (ADSJ) decision to suspend the order of another ADSJ for police to register a torture case against jail authorities.

ADSJ Muhammad Saleem suspended ADSJ Rao Abdul Jabbar’s directions to the Kot Lakhpat station house officer (SHO) last Monday, on a petition by a jail warder. He issued pre-admission notices to the SHO and to the prisoner, Dr Faheem Raza, for June 14. “Subject to notice, implementation of order dated May 28, 2011, shall remain suspended,” the judge said.

Jabbar had ordered the SHO on May 28 to register a torture case against the jail’s superintendent, deputy superintendent, a medical officer, a warder, and the inspector general and deputy inspector general of prisons. He was acting duty judge in place of ADSJ Musharraf Hussain Sumra, who was the original judge hearing Dr Faheem Raza’s plea that he had been tortured for telling the press that he had found a human finger in the jail’s food.

Legal experts said that a judge did not have the authority to suspend the orders of a judge of the same rank. “The proper forum for an appeal against an ADSJ’s orders is the Lahore High Court,” said Advocate Raja Zulqarnain, former secretary of the Supreme Court Bar Association. He said he suspected that the orders had been suspended “in pursuit of vested interests”.

Advocate Tipu Salman Makhdoom said the decision was illegal as an ADSJ could not suspend the orders of another ADSJ. “Setting such an irresponsible precedent could cause a flood of litigation,” he said.

Dr Raza says that after he informed the press that he had found a human finger in his food, he was shifted to a separate cell, drugged and deprived of food and sleep. He says the deputy superintendent of the jail pulled out his toenails with a pair of pliers.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2011.