PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday reserved its order over deciding a legal point whether arrest of an accused in one case would also be considered in multiple cases registered against him or would be re-arrested one after another.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim had formulated the legal points during hearing of several petitions of leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf who were re-arrested by the law enforcing agencies in another cases after getting bails from courts concerned.

The bench had on Dec 7 raised a legal point whether arrest of an accused charged in multiple cases would be in a particular case or all of them.

The bench also questioned whether an accused in multiple cases would be re-arrested multiple times.

Chief justice observes neither they belonged to any political party nor had any political agenda

Advocate General Aamir Javed, additional advocates general Danyal Chamkani and Jalaluddin Akber Gara appeared for the provincial government, Syed Sikander Hayat Shah and other lawyers for the petitioners, whereas senior lawyers Shabbir Hussain Gigyani and Barrister Amir Khan Chamkani argued as amicus curie.

The petitions were filed by former MNAs Junaid Akber, Mujahid Khan, Asad Qaiser and other leaders of PTI.

The AG contended that in the light of several judgments of the superior courts if an accused was arrested in cases registered at same police station, his arrest would be considered in all the cases.

However, he contended that if an accused was charged in cases registered in different police stations or by different law enforcement agencies (LEAs), his arrest in all those cases was a legal requirement.

He stated that the court had to see whether an agency could interfere in the jurisdiction of other. For instance, he said, if an accused was arrested by the police and also required by FIA, the latter would also show his arrest.

The bench inquired when an accused was released from prison in one of the cases and re-arrested at the entrance of the prison, whether it was not necessary that he should be informed about the pending cases against him.

The AG stated that as different LEAs worked independently under their devised mechanisms, it was not possible that a single arrest by police would serve purpose for other agencies also.

During the course of hearing the chief justice observed that neither they belonged to any political party nor they had any political agenda, but they had taken oath to uphold the constitution.

When Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim inquired whether the police and other agencies had unbridled powers to arrest a person, the AG replied in negative stating that they had to follow their respective laws.

Advocate Shabbir Gigyani argued that after May 9 the police and other law enforcement agencies were involved in flagrant violation of the constitution. He added that police did not have unbridled powers to arrested or re-arrest suspects.

Referring to a petition of late General Pervez Musharraf before the apex court, he stated that in the light of that judgment the re-arrest of an accused multiple times whether by police or any other agency was illegal.

Barrister Chamkani was of the opinion that as anti-corruption establishment, NAB, FIA and police had different laws and rules, each one of them had to separately arrest a person in a case registered by them.

He added that the magistrate concerned was empowered to delay arrest of an accused in a particular case.

STAY EXTENDED: A bench consisting of Justice Syed M Attique Shah and Justice Sahibzada Asadullah extended a restraining order till Dec 21 stopping the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from announcing final order over the matter related to PTI’s intra-party elections.

PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Shah Faisal Uthmankhel, Naumanul Haq Kakakhel, Syed Sikander Shah etc appeared for the party whereas advocate Mohsin Kamran Siddique represented the ECP.

Mr Siddique pointed out that they had field comments of the ECP, but had so far not been placed on the file.

Barrister Gohar stated that they should be provided copies of the ECP reply.

PTI has challenged the ECP proceedings over a petition filed by Akber S Babar challenging the party’s intra-party polls held in Peshawar on Dec 2.

Subsequently, it also filed an application in the main petition against a notice issued by ECP to party’s chief election commissioner asking him to appear before it as prima facie the PTI didn’t hold intra-party election in accordance with the law and its constitution.

The court had earlier allowed ECP to continue with its proceedings on the petition as well as on the notice but not to announce the verdict.

The main petition sought orders for ECP to issue the required certificate under the elections act regarding the PTI’s intra-party polls.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2023