ISLAMABAD: Islam­abad High Court (IHC) has ordered the police to present PTI leader Sheharyar Afridi in court and sought record of his detention.

The court also issued show-cause notices to the district magistrate and senior police officials over alleged contempt of court for abusing their authority.

A petition was subsequently filed by his lawyer in the IHC against the district magistrate’s order on Aug 8 to hold Mr Afridi in preventive detention.

The PTI leader has been in and out of prison since he was taken into custody on May 16 from his residence in Islamabad in connection with the violence on May 9, following the arrest of PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

Police officials, magistrate summoned for ‘contempt of court, abuse of power’

Since then he has been released and rearrested twice. His latest detention came on Aug 4 when the former federal minister was arrested by Rawalpindi police under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) ordinance for 15 days soon after he was released from Adiala jail on the order of an Anti-Terrorism Court.

Hearing the petition on Tuesday, IHC Justice Babar Sattar issued the production order for the detained PTI leader and ordered the police to produce him on Wednesday (today).

Mr Afridi’s counsel argued that an order was passed by the same magistrate on May 16 which was set aside by the IHC for being against the law and the Constitution.

He stated multiple ord­ers, under the MPO, were passed against his client within Punjab. The Laho­­re High Court has not only set-aside them aside, but also restrained the authorities from issuing further detention orders.

The Aug 8 order was passed by the Islamabad district magistrate even though he had no authority to issue a detention order under MPO, the lawyer argued.

The counsel also shared with the court a report issued by police officials on the basis of which the district magistrate concluded Mr Afridi incited the public and caused disturbance to public order.

Justice Sattar stated that a review of the record showed the magistrate’s order was passed on extraneous considerations.

He remarked that the prosecution’s arguments, based on requests by police officials, were “bald allegations with no details and including no material on the basis of which jurisdiction could be exercised under Section 3 of MPO”.

A person involved in any crime should be charged for the offence, instead of being detained under a law meant to prevent a breach of public order in the future.

The police’s request for preventive custody carried no detail about the source of information against Mr Afridi or the threat posed by him to the public order, the judge remarked. He added the request by the police station concerned was endorsed by the district police officer and subsequently by the SSP (Operations).

On the basis of this “bald request” the district magistrate passed an order “with no application of mind or without satisfaction with regard to the necessity of detaining the petitioner against whom multiple orders by three different high courts have declared such orders illegal”.

Justice Sattar observed that the record before him showed the magistrate’s order had a “lack of merit” and thus, it is appropriate to hear the judge before passing a substantive order.

He summoned the district magistrate and issued show cause notices to the Margalla Police Station SHO, Islamabad City Zone DPO and SSP (Operations) for criminal contempt of court and abusing the authority to obstruct justice.

Later, the hearing was adjourned till Wednesday (today).

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2023