Fawad's arrest: Contempt plea filed against cops for flouting LHC orders

Act of respondents not only highly contemptuous but amounts to destruction of entire judicial system, reads petition

LAHORE:

A plea was filed in Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday, seeking contempt proceedings against 16 police officials including inspector generals of Punjab and Islamabad, Secretary and Additional Secretary Interior over flouting court orders repeatedly by not producing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Chaudhry Fawad Hussain.

Petitioner Nabeel Shahzad, one of Fawad’s cousins, filed the petition through advocate Azhar Siddique contending that a plea was submitted seeking the recovery of the PTI leader to which the LHC passed repeated orders after short intervals, directing police officials including the Islamabad and Punjab IGPs but all in vain as the officials did not bother to comply with the court orders.

"Petition came up for hearing before the court at around 12:10pm and this court was gracious enough to pass an order and thereby direct the learned officers to ask the respondents to produce Fawad Chaudhry at 1:30pm on January 25, 2023, and this order was duly conveyed to the contemnors/respondents but Fawad Chaudhry was not produced," the counsel added.

The petition stated that as the matter was again taken up after a short interval, the same direction was given to respondents by the court but the PTI leader was not produced.

Read more: Court accepts police request for Fawad's physical remand extension

The order was defied although the news was aired on social media and TV channels. This time directions were given to the inspector generals of Islamabad and Punjab to appear in person along with Fawad but even then neither appeared nor Fawad was produced, it said.

"This act of the respondents is not only highly contemptuous but is also untoward and amounts to destruction of the entire judicial system in a highly condemnable way and manner and the Punjab administration has girded up its lion to sabotage this highly esteemed judicial system."

However, Azhar said that the petition was dismissed as Fawad had reached Islamabad by the exercise of the respondents' illegal and without jurisdiction actions which defied the different orders passed by the LHC.

"The respondents by showing a stubborn and wilful contemptuous attitude, opted out of producing the detenu before this court and have thus committed contempt of court. The contemnors are liable to be dealt with strenuous hands and deserve deterrent punishment."

He requested the court to initiate contempt proceedings against Punjab IGP Dr Usman Anwar, Islamabad IGP Afzaal Kausar, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Operations) Raza Tanvir, Superintendent of Police (Operation) Cantt District Lahore Hassan Javed and others including Secretary Interior Yousaf Naseem Khokhar and Additional Secretary Interior Asad Islam.

The PTI leader was arrested from Lahore on Wednesday on charges of sedition for "threatening" the chief election commissioner (CEC) and members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Following this, an Islamabad court handed Fawad over to the police on a two-day physical remand.

Earlier in the day, the court accepted the police’s request for further physical remand of the PTI leader, reversing an earlier order by a judicial magistrate issued on Friday.

Judge Tahir Mehmood Khan, presiding the hearing, also ordered investigators to produce the former information minister before a magistrate today.