LAHORE, March 1: The restraining order for the Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan lapses here on Sunday night amid calls for his release linked closely to his stance on the deposed judges.

The Punjab government had arrested Mr Ahsan in the wake of imposition of Nov 3 emergency and put him behind the bars in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail. Later, under Section 3 of the MPO, he was detained at his Zaman Park residence.

When the Punjab government ran out of justification to keep Mr Ahsan detained after extending twice his month-long detention, it came up with a restraining order last month to keep him confined to his residence. According to the Constitution, a person could not be detained beyond three months.

The Constitution says if the government still requires to keep someone detained, he or she will be produced before a review board comprising high court judges in case of a provincial law or a board of Supreme Court judges if being detained under a federal law. Since Mr Ahsan was being detained under Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, a provincial law, he was required to be produced before a high court review board.

However, in Mr Ahsan’s case, he was neither produced before any board nor he himself sought intervention of the judges because of their oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) in the wake of November 3 emergency.

Mr Ahsan enjoys a lot of respect and influence among the lawyers' community, who had proved themselves to be the tireless campaigners for the independence of judiciary. Where Mr Ahsan had made friends in the lawyers' community through his adherence to the cause of the independence of judiciary, he ended up making a lot of foes not only in the government but among his party fellows too.

For some, Mr Ahsan's stance on the issue favoured the PML-N, while the rest still saw him as part and parcel of the PPP. As for Mr Ahsan, he professes being a family member of the PPP.

Underneath all the controversy, Mr Ahsan has a firm believe in the independence of judiciary - to which not only his speeches but his recent poetry too bears a testimony. Lawyers see him as a brave leader, who did not flinch facing baton-wielding policemen and other rigours of the regime. He had caught high fever when he was blocked on the Motorway at Chakri, driven in an open police van for seven hours in freezing cold of the night and brought back home to confinement.

During a protest in front of his residence, when protesters brought Mr Ahsan out of his residence in violation of his restraining order, Mr Ahsan had said that he had declined the government's offer of release linked with deserting the movement for the restoration of the deposed judges.

Talking to Dawn on Saturday, Bushra Aitzaz said she was expecting that the government would not indulge in any further illegality. She said the illegal restraining order was due to lapse today.

To a question regarding PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari's statement on Mr Ahsan's release, she said it did not carry weight. "The fact of the matter is that he is due to be released and an illegal restraining order was expiring. No undertaker or caretaker government can claim credit for his release," she added.She said still a police contingent was present outside his residence along with trucks and barricades.