Chief justice takes suo motu action in Khairi case

Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui has intervened in the situation arising out of the arrest and remand of Muhammad Habib-ul-Wahab-ul-Khairi, a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, and called for a report by Friday morning.
Taking a suo motu notice of a news report that lawyers will launch a countrywide boycott of the courts if advocate Khairi was not released immediately, the Chief Justice ordered the Punjab Advocate General to present to him within two days a report about the case.
In a brief order, the Chief Justice said: "It has been reported, inter alia, in the Daily Nawa-i-Waqat dated 21.9.2004 that Mr Habib-ul-Wahab-ul-Khairi, an advocate of this court, has been arrested in pursuance of an FIR registered some 37 years ago.
"The Advocate General Punjab is directed to submit within two days a report about the case relating to arrest/detention of Mr Khairi. The matter may be placed before me in chamber on 24.9.2004."
Khairi, a former journalist turned lawyer in early 70's, was known for his public interest litigation in the recent years. His most famous case is called the "Judges Case" where the nation's highest judicial forum set down the parameters for appointments and elevation of the judges of the superior courts and thus liberated it from the control of executive.
But recently he launched a campaign against the changes in the Punjab High Court making public pronouncements and filing petitions critical of the provincial chief justice.
A few weeks ago he lodged a report with the police alleging that he was waylaid near his Satellite Town house and clubbed. For days he appeared in courts with a bandaged head. On the night of last Friday-Saturday he was picked up from his house and told that a First Information Report, lodged by someone called Shafiqur Rahman, 37 years ago, had accused him of "forgery etc".
According to his son, Owais Khairi and another lawyer Zulfikar Bhutta, the following day he was taken round a number of police stations and then handed over to the Crimes Investigation Authority (CIA), which took his remand for eight days from a magistrate. His lawyers later said that the process was conducted without producing Khairi before a magistrate.
A bail application moved before another judicial magistrate here on Tuesday was also not accepted.
Khairi's lawyers, appointed by the Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association President Tariq Mahmood, had alleged that an "influential member of the judiciary was pulling the strings against their client".