MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) High Court has dismissed two identical petitions filed by a member of the AJK cabinet-- one individually and the other jointly with a district councillor-- seeking to overturn a decision by the Justice of Peace (JP) that ordered the police to register an FIR against the minister and others based on a complaint by civil society activists.

On June 13, Sardar Shabbir Khan, president of the traders’ body of Poonch division, approached Sudhnoti’s JP (district and session judge) under Section 22-A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), requesting a directive for the police to register FIRs against the minister for tourism, Sardar Faheem Akhtar Rabbani, and several others, including two police officials, for allegedly assaulting and abusing them.

Mr Khan alleged that on June 9, during a festival in Sudhnoti, he and his colleagues were attacked, abused, and roughed up at two different locations at the behest of Mr Rabbani, but the police were not entertaining their complaint, maintaining that they had already registered an FIR on the issue from the other party.

In his decision on June 29, JP Raja Imtiaz Ahmed directed SP Sudhnoti and SHO Baloch to register the FIR based on the complaint of Mr Khan and others.

The minister then challenged the decision under Section 561-A of CrPC through two writ petitions, one of which he filed jointly with district councillor Azhar Iqbal, imploring that the JP’s order should be set aside as it was passed “without considering the proper procedure and relevant law required for registration of a criminal case against the petitioners.”

The petitioners further requested that any FIR registered in compliance with the decision should also be declared unlawful, arbitrary in nature, and against the fundamental rights of the petitioners.

However, vacation judge Sardar Muhammad Ejaz, who took up the petitions in the Rawalakot circuit the other day, dismissed the same for being “devoid of merit.”

He ruled that at this stage, it could not be determined without further investigation whether the petitioners had any connection with the allegations leveled against them by Mr Khan and others.

“In such circumstances, the learned JP has committed no illegality by allowing the application and directing the concerned police [station] to register a criminal case against the petitioners (minister and others) while exercising powers conferred under Section 22-A of the CrPC,” he held.

Justice Ejaz further noted that the truth or falsehood of the allegations could only be ascertained after the registration of a case and subsequent investigations by the investigating agency.

“Therefore, the petitioners have an alternative and effective remedy to appear before the investigating agency and record their version, and if found innocent, they will be exonerated of the allegations levelled against them,” the judge held, adding, “Otherwise, they will have to face the consequences”.

While advocates Raja Mehboob and Raja Ejaz represented the petitioners, trader leader Khan and others were represented by advocates Asim Irshad and Tanveer Qureshi.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2024