LHC tells petitioner to prove maintainability

Advocate general ‘appointment’ case adjourned till after Eid.

LAHORE:

Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Justice Ijazul Ahsan on Wednesday asked the petitioner to establish maintainability of his petition challenging the appointment of Acting Advocate General Mustafa Ramday at the next hearing scheduled after Eid.

The judge asked the petitioner, Advocate Noshab Khan, whether it was a petition for a writ of quo warranto. ‘Quo warranto’ usually arises in a civil case as a plaintiff’s claim that some government or corporate official was not validly elected to that office or was wrongfully exercising powers beyond those authorised by statute or by the corporation’s charter.

Khan told the court that it wasn’t. The judge then asked him whether he himself was a candidate for the post. The petitioner said he wasn’t.

The judge next asked him to convince the court of the maintainability of petition.

During the course of the hearing, an additional advocate general submitted the notification of appointment of Ramday which said that he was appointed as additional advocate general and later given additional charge to look after administrative affairs of office of the advocate general.

The judge noted that since Ramday was not appointed as the acting advocate general, the “appointment” could not be challenged.

The judge said that if Ramday was appearing in the Supreme Court as the acting advocate general, then the case could be different.

“If Ramday is not appearing before the Supreme Court, how can it be construed that he has been appointed as the acting advocate general?” he asked.

Earlier, Khan had said that Ramday had been appointed as additional advocate general and had been given charge of the office of acting advocate general.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 18^th, 2013.