ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued notices to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shahbaz Gill in the government’s petition seeking his physical remand in the sedition case against him.
A single bench of Acting Chief Justice Aamer Farooq on Monday heard the federal government’s petition filed through Advocate General Islamabad Jahangir Jadoon seeking physical custody of the PTI leader to collect additional evidence in the case and acquire the names of those allegedly behind the offense.
During the hearing, Justice Farooq asked why the authorities were seeking PTI leader Gill’s physical custody. He said you are saying that an extension in the suspect’s physical remand is necessary and questioned what will you do after getting the extension?
Jadoon informed the acting CJ about the lower courts’ decisions regarding the PTI leader’s physical remand. He added that the government had taken serious notice of Gill’s comments on television that targeted the country’s institutions and registered a case against him. He further said that his remarks were against institutions that had given many sacrifices for this country.
However, Justice Farooq mentioned the expiry of Gill’s physical remand and said that the subsequent rejection of an appeal against the decision not to extend the remand was a “reality”. The judge observed that one fact is that your [AGI] request for revision was dismissed and the other is that the physical remand has expired. He then sought arguments on the maintainability of the review petition.
Advocate Raja Rizwan Abbasi referred to the decisions of various courts in his arguments as he made a case for the maintainability of the petition against the judicial magistrate’s decision.
At this, the court asked the counsel that are you saying that further physical remand of the accused is necessary? The AG Islamabad said that the laptop and various other devices have not yet been found and they are to be recovered from Gill.
Besides Abbasi and Jadoon, the case’s investigating officer and special prosecutor Haseeb Chaudhry also appeared before the court in this matter.
Later, the court issued notices to Gill seeking a reply from him and deferred the proceedings till Tuesday (Aug 16).
In the petition, the prosecution cited Shahbaz Gill, the sessions judge, Islamabad and the judicial magistrate as respondents. The government adopted the stance in the petition that the investigation was incomplete and Judicial Magistrate Umar Shabbir granted judicial remand and rejected an extension of Gill’s physical remand which has resulted in the prosecution case being subjected to “serious prejudice”.
It requested physical custody of the accused, arguing that the “police have yet to recover the mobile phone of the accused containing necessary information/date to corroborate the contents of FIR as a piece of evidence.”
It requested the IHC to set aside the orders of the two judges, grant Gill’s physical custody to the investigating agency for the collection of further evidence and declare that the judicial magistrate’s verdict was a judicial order and open to revision by the sessions judge and the IHC.
Meanwhile, Shahbaz Gill also filed a petition before the IHC against the sedition case registered against him by terming it as “malicious” and requested the court to quash the said FIR.
In the petition, Gill stated that a “malicious” case against him was filed by the police to show their “loyalty” to the incumbent government. He further stated that the case was filed only to “satisfy the political agenda of the government”.
The petitioner said there is no option but to approach the high court to seek refuge from oppression. He added that the court should accept the petition for dismissing the case and declare the first information report (FIR) against him as null and void.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022