Nekokara, Cheema case: IHC restrains govt from issuing final disciplinary orders

Additional AG to argue on maintainability of petition in next hearing

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has restrained the government from issuing final orders against suspended Islamabad inspector-general of police (IGP) Aftab Ahmed Cheema until the next hearing of the case. 

Justice Athar Minallah requested that the IHC chief justice constitute a larger bench for further proceedings, when the additional attorney general (AAG) will be arguing over the maintainability of the petition.

While issuing notice to the Islamabad advocate general for the next hearing, the court also directed all the respondents to submit para-wise comments on the petition.

The directions came during the hearing of a petition filed by four retired police officers, pleading for the reinstatement of suspended IGP Aftab Ahmed Cheema, and former Islamabad senior superintendent of police (SSP) Mohammad Ali Nekokara.

The petitioners described the disciplinary actions against the two officials as “illegal”.

The IGP was suspended and the SSP dismissed from service for disobeying government orders to use force against violent protesters during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) sit-in last year.

Former IGPs Iftikhar Rashid, Afzal Shigri, Tariq Pervez and Shaukat Javed, through their counsel Babar Sattar, have challenged the government order.

On Monday, AAG Afnan Karim Kundi argued that the petition was not maintainable as the IHC was not the proper forum for the petitioners as it was a service matter and the petitioners should approach the Federal Services Tribunal. Besides, he said, the petitioners were not directly aggrieved parties in the case.

Sattar argued that the Supreme Court has already decided on several matters dealing with public and private interest petitions. These persons may or may not benefit from the case, but the petition protects the interests and benefits of the department and the public at-large.

Under what authority or law the interior minister or its secretary can interfere in law and order issues, Justice Minallah asked. The AAG replied that he was not in a position to answer without speaking to the persons in question.

“What will the court do if the secretary dismisses half of the police force one day,” he asked, “Will it tell the petitioner to go to a tribunal or stop the authorities [from unilaterally dismissing people]?”

After allowing the AAG to argue on the maintainability of the petition in the next hearing, the court adjourned till the first week of June.

In the backdrop of the Model Town incident, Sattar stated that both the officials abided by the mandate of the law, resolved to follow only written legal orders, and refused to suspend professional judgment in acting to mechanically discharge any orders received from the federal government.

The petition maintained that even while the PML-N and the political masters of the federal government might have had a partisan interest in using strong-arm measures to coerce and oust the protesters from the Red Zone in Islamabad, IG Cheema, SSP Nekokara and the interior secretary, as servants of the state and not the PML-N, were obliged to exercise the powers under law in a fair, just and reasonable manner to uphold the rights of all citizens.

The interior, foreign affairs and establishment secretaries, FIA director general, Cheema, and Nekokara have been made respondents in the petition.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2015.