A provincial government law officer on Thursday told the Lahore High Court chief justice that there was no legal provision to determine most-wanted criminals.
LHC CJ Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry later directed him to file a written reply on the criteria under which a name is placed on the list of most-wanted criminals on the next hearing.
The law officer also told the court that being declared one of the most-wanted criminals did not necessarily lead to an arrest. He said a person was arrested without a charge only if he was considered a threat to public order.
The chief justice remarked that there should be a mechanism to ascertain whether someone was a threat to public order. He was hearing a petition filed by Pakistan Peoples Party Lahore vice president Asrarul Haq Butt and Babar Sohail Butt of People’s Youth Organisation. The petitioners had challenged inclusion of their names in the list of most-wanted criminals of the province through their counsel.
They had pleaded that the inclusion of their names was politically motivated because they were members of the opposition party in the province.
The petitioners however admitted that they had had a rivalry with a group. Counsel said they had been granted bail by courts in several cases registered against them.
They requested the court to issue directives for the government to remove their names from the list. The hearing was adjourned until the second week of October.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2011.
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