LHC summons case record over lawyer’s conviction

Petitioner says decision ignored several legal aspects case that accused him of attacking the judge

LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court, once again, summoned the case record on the appeal of a lawyer who was sentenced by an anti-terrorism court to 18 years after he assaulted a judge. The court sought the record of the case by June 12

An anti-terrorism court in Faisalabad issued the sentence to Imran Manj under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 324 and other sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). The lawyer had injured a judge by throwing a chair at him during the hearing of a case.

As the two-judge bench, headed by Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi, commenced proceedings, the judges learnt that the case record could not be produced. The bench summoned the record again on the mentioned date.

In previous proceedings, Justice Naqvi said he came to know of a video clip in which abusive language was used by some lawyers against judges.

The bench sought a report on what sort of action had been taken by concerned quarters.

Senior lawyer Burhan Moazam Malik said the practice licences of the lawyers who used abusive language have been cancelled. “A few lawyers have high jacked the whole system,” Justice Naqvi said.

In his appeal, petitioner Imran Manj contended that the ATC had handed in the verdict in a short span of time, thus ignoring several legal aspects of the case. He maintained that the legal procedure was not adopted in his case.

The decision handed in by the ATC was contrary to the facts and he was not given the opportunity to fight this case properly.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2019.