‘Maintain phone, social media records of bureaucrats’

LHC CJ drops contempt proceedings against bureaucrats following written apology

LAHORE:

Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice (CJ) Muhammad Qasim Khan has directed the concerned quarters to start maintaining social media and mobile phone record of civil servants and their families.

The province’s top judge also directed the relevant authority must decide whether or not the civil servants could operate social media accounts at all and if allowed, under what criteria.

LHC CJ Khan said this while hearing a plea against commissioners, assistant commissioners and deputy commissioners of the province for allegedly refusing court orders, staging protests and chanting slogans against judiciary.

Chief Justice Khan accepted the written apology of the representatives of the Provincial Management Service (PMS) Officers Association on behalf of the respondent officers involved in the under scrutiny campaign and stopped the contempt proceedings against them.

The court also accepted the written apology of Assistant Commissioner Raja Muhammad Haider who had allegedly used derogatory language against a civil judge, disrespected the judiciary and hurled threats to the civil judges of dire consequences.

It is worth mentioning that a civil judge of Sargodha had ordered the police to handcuff Assistant Commissioner Raja Muhammad Haider in court room after he appeared before the judge after issuance of arrest warrants for defying court order.

After the incident, commissioners, assistant commissioners and deputy commissioners of the province had stopped working and launched a campaign against judiciary.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2021.