LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday stayed possible deportation of an Afghan national who married a local woman six years ago.

Justice Ali Baqar Najafi passed the restraining order on a petition by Fauzia Muhammad against the likely arrest and deportation of her husband, Saddam Hussain.

Advocate Safdar Shaheen Pirzada argued on behalf of the petitioner saying his client was a by-birth Pakistani citizen and her ancestors had been living here before partition. He said the petitioner married to Saddam in 2017 and had two sons out of this wedlock.

He said the police recently summoned the petitioner’s husband telephonically and asked him to leave the country as per the government policy against Afghan refugees. He contended that the petitioner’s husband was also born and brought up in Pakistan.

The counsel told the court that the petitioner filed an application to the ministry of interior for the citizenship of her husband, which had not been decided by the authority concerned.

He argued that the process for citizenship was underway, therefore, propriety demands that till a decision on the matter, the petitioner’s husband should not be expelled from Pakistan.

He stated that the petitioner prima facie had a case in her favour and there was a possibility of the success towards the end of the day.

He asked the court not to deport/repatriate the petitioner’s husband to Afghanistan.

The judge restrained the federal government and other respondents from deporting the petitioner’s husband and sought replies from them by Dec 21.

BAGH-I-SAFA CASE: An application has been filed with the Supreme Court seeking a copy of a reply by the Lahore High Court’s registrar in a suo motu case against construction of a judicial complex at a Mughal-era garden in Kallar Kahar.

Akmal Khan, the applicant, asked the SC registrar to provide a copy of the report carrying details of the project of constructing a judicial complex at the historical site of Bagh-i-Safa submitted by Lahore High Court Chief Justice Ameer Bhatti through his registrar.

He states that as a citizen of Pakistan, it is his fundamental right to have access to information in all matters of public importance under Article 19-A of the Constriction.

“Therefore it is mandatory to provide the information about the report submitted by chief justice Lahore High Court to the applicant under the constitutional safeguards,” says the applicant, a former BS-19 officer of the LHC.

The application has been submitted to the chief justice of Pakistan, the registrars of the Supreme Court and the Lahore High Court.

The LHC had last year terminated Akmal Khan, who was often dubbed as a whistle-blower, on charges of disobedience and anti-institutional campaign.

An inquiry under the charge of ‘disobedience’ was initiated against him after he filed a writ petition in 2017 against out-of-turn promotions in the establishment of the LHC, which is still pending with the court.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2023