Justice Ali Baqar Najafi of the Lahore High Court (LHC) scolded the law officer hard on Friday for taking too long to send in the cabinet’s decision on Khadija Shah’s review case against her detention order. Shah is a fashion designer who supports the PTI.
Justice Najafi was hearing the case of the detainee’s husband, Jehanzeb Amin, who was challenging his wife’s detention order and asking the court to stop the people involved from moving or removing the detainee from Lahore or from this court’s jurisdiction.
Before the case started, the lawyer told the court that the matter had been sent to the cabinet and that a decision would be made as soon as possible at that meeting.
The petitioner’s lawyer, advocate Sameer Khosa, was very against what the government was doing. He said that the government was dragging out the case for one reason after another. Khosa said that the matter was still open even though several days had passed.
Once the arguments were over, Justice Najafi told the law officer to present the cabinet’s choice as soon as possible.
In a previous case, Justice Najafi had told the relevant parties to make a decision as soon as possible on the aforementioned plea. At the same time, he told the petitioner to talk to the extra home secretary, who will make a decision on the application.
Advocate Khosa had also raised major concerns about the matter being held up at a previous hearing. He said it was clear that the court had told the additional home secretary to make a decision on the case the same day, but the court’s order wasn’t followed.
Khadija had been in jail for six months, so her lawyer said, how could she be a threat to public safety.
Petition
Petitioner Jehanzeb Amin says that after his wife was given bail in all of the cases, she was detained illegally for 30 days and given a detention order.
He said that the LHC had let her go free on bail in two FIRs before, after the Lahore CCPO had given a report saying that only two cases had been registered against her. But right after that, she was jailed in a third FIR that wasn’t made public.
