KARACHI, Jan 15: A high court has no power to initiate a reference suo motu under Article 199 or any other provision of the constitution, newly-appointed Advocate-General Dr M. Farogh Naseem told a five-member bench on Tuesday in his maiden appearance in the May 12, 2007 mayhem case.

Neither of the amici curiae (friends of the court) was present to rebut the argument and the bench gave Advocates Khalid Anwer and Qazi Faez Isa a final opportunity to join in the proceedings on Jan 25.

Mr Anwer appeared earlier when the proceedings commenced and called for court-supervised investigations into the incidents of violence coinciding with the arrival of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry at Karachi airport on May 12. Mr Isa was present at every hearing before November 2007 but stayed away later saying that he would not appear before the new bench of judges who had taken an oath under the provisional constitution order of Nov 3. On the previous date, however, his associate said the lawyer was on general adjournment.

Notices were also ordered to be issued to the bar representatives, who subsequently joined in the proceedings as petitioners for the same date.

The AG argued that the court could not act as an investigation agency or launch a probe into factual controversies in exercise of its writ jurisdiction. Nor could Article 199 be invoked by a person not directly aggrieved by an administrative act complained of. Over 80 criminal complaints or FIRs had been lodged and registered at various police stations and investigations were in progress by police, the agency required by the law to investigate breach of peace.

He said May 12 saw a large-scale breakdown of ‘civil environment’ and police intervened with the greatest caution to prevent a bigger conflagration. They had taken all precautionary measures by putting up barricades to prevent civil strife. The (deposed) CJ was received by top officials of the administration at the airport and offered police escort to the venue of his address at the Sindh High Court. In the alternative, he was requested to fly to the SHC premises by a helicopter but he declined both proposals.

The AG cited a Delhi high court judgment wherein the court refused to interfere in the incidents of violence triggered by the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi. An Indian supreme court verdict upheld the police action to barricade Amritsar to stop a violent rally. Measures taken by police on May 12 were intended to prevent more violence.

He referred to the Dec 27 disturbances and said: ‘We are an emotional people prone to giving vent to our anger and grief in a violent manner on streets by damaging public and private property.” No useful purpose would be served by the inquiry instituted by the high court as ‘the only solution lies in improving our social norms’. No effective order, he said, could be passed by the court to undo the damage already done. It could only express a hope that the stakeholders would avoid recurrence of such incidents but such expressions were not a function of the judiciary.

The high court could act effectively if a specific grievance was alleged by an aggrieved party.Deputy Attorney-General Rizwan Ahmed Siddiqui also cited Pakistani and Indian cases against exercise of suo motu powers by high courts and endorsed the AG’s arguments, which were adopted by Advocates Kazi Mohammad Ashraff and Iqtidar Ali Hashmi, the respondents’ counsel.

The bench was headed by Chief Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro and consisted of Justices Munib Ahmed Khan, Qaiser Iqbal, Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui and Dr Rana M. Shamim.