KARACHI, April 17: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the chief secretary, the home and law secretaries and the provincial police chief in a petition challenging the imposition of a ban on pillion riding in the city.

A division bench headed by Justice Faisal Arab also issued a notice to the provincial law officer and put off the hearing to a date to be later fixed by the court office.

Petitioner Rana Fiazul Hasan, secretary general of the United Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, submitted in the petition that the provincial government had once again imposed the ban on pillion riding and it was piling misery on people.

He said that the city of over 20 million people already lacked public transport facilities and the ban on pillion riding deprived millions of people of travelling on motorcycles.

The petitioner stated that the provincial authorities time and again imposed the ban on pillion riding initially for a few days and on the pretext of maintaining law and order in the city.

However, he said, the ban on pillion riding was extended for months, which was a violation of Articles 4, 8 and 25 of the Constitution.

He prayed to the court to declare the ban on pillion riding tantamount to usurping the fundamental rights of the citizens.

The petitioner requested to the court to suspend the operation of the notification regarding the ban.

He also prayed to the court to direct the respondent government officials to inform the court as to why and for how long the ban was imposed in only one city of the province.

Websites blockade case

A division bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar put the ministry of information technology and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on notice in a petition against censorship and blockade of websites and online forums containing political viewpoints.

The petition was filed by Ayesha Tammy Haq and others, who submitted that the PTA was constantly resorting to unlawfully blocking access to various websites, online forums for criticising the working of the government institutions and its policies, including the hefty expenditure and budgetary allocation of the armed forces.

They submitted in the petition that the respondents’ action to block the websites, online forums was unjust and unlawful as it was done without giving prior notice to the websites concerned or online publications.

The petitioners prayed to the court to direct the respondents to ensure that no website or online publication or forum or any other content be blocked without prior notice or inviting public objections to any such contemplated action.

The bench also issued a notice to the federal government law officer and adjourned the hearing to May 7.