The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday directed a petitioner to satisfy the court on maintainability of his petition seeking the court's directives to restrain Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf (PTI) from lockdown of Islamabad on November, 2. Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who was heading the bench, raised the question whether SHC has jurisdiction to hear the petition, stating that the Islamabad High Court might be the proper forum as the PTI is planning to shut down the capital.
The bench put off the hearing to a date which would be announced later by the court staff, directing Barrister Ali Tahir, the petitioner, to come up with comments on the petition's maintainability in the next hearing. Earlier, citing PTI Chairman Imran Khan, Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi and MNA Jahangir Tareen as respondents, the petitioner submitted that PTI's plan to shut down Islamabad was tantamount of picking up arms against the state.
Barrister Tahir maintained in his petition that at a time when the tension was one the rise between Pakistan and India, the ministries of defence and finance need to be on high alert, the closure of the capital would affect the national security. The foreign investments are also on the rise in Pakistan but if the offices were shut down due to PTI's protest, it would result in economic meltdown. The PTI is already filed a petition in the Supreme Court of Pakistan on the Panama papers issue yet it is threatening to close the capital. Since the matter is sub-judice, the protest would be tantamount to threat the institutions of the state, the petitioner submitted.