LAHORE: Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday recused himself from a petition challenging the Election (Second Amendment) Act 2024.

“For personal reasons, I don’t want to hear this case. Office [of the registrar] to place the matter before any other learned bench of this court after obtaining appropriate direction from the honourable acting chief justice,” the judge said in his order passed on the petition filed by Advocate Azhar Siddique.

Later, the registrar’s office fixed the hearing of the petition before Justice Shakil Ahmad for Aug 15.

Advocate Siddique told the media that Justice Ahmad refused to hear the matter due to his unavailability at the principal seat in the coming weeks.

In his petition, the lawyer alleged that the government introduced the amendments to the law only to make July 12 judgment of the Supreme Court ineffective, which he claimed, did complete justice to the people of Pakistan by directing that the PTI-backed independent returned candidates be recognised as the candidates of the party (PTI).

He said the impugned amendments are party-specific and the ruling parties are already enjoying the quota of reserved seats, and they cannot be given the right to take advantage of the amendments.

He asked the court to declare the Elections (second amendment) Act, 2024 ultra vires of the Constitution and restrain the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) from allocating reserved seats to any other political party in the National Assembly and provincial assembly of Punjab, that are proportionate to the PTI’s entitlement.

remand extended: An anti-terrorism court on Tuesday extended the judicial remand of two suspects for their identification parade in a case of alleged honey trapping and kidnapping playwright Khalilur Rehman Qamar.

The police presented key suspect Hassan Shah and co-suspect Rafiq alias Feeqi before the court on expiry of their previous judicial remand.

The investigating officer told the court that the process for the suspects’ identification parade could not be completed during the previous custody. He requested the court for further custody of the suspects.

Duty Judge Irfan Haider allowed the request and extended the judicial remand of the suspects for seven days with a direction to the police to complete the identity parade by Aug 19.

According to police, Hassan Shah along with his accomplices kidnapped Qamar and demanded a ransom of Rs10 million.

In this case, nine other suspects are on physical remand with the police, while key woman suspect Amna Arooj has been sent on judicial remand and her bail petition is pending with the court.

Arooj denies charges against her, saying Hassan Shah and Qamar blackmailed her.

She told the court that Shah, who was like a brother to her, knew about Qamar’s blackmailing.

Arooj claimed that both men were powerful, and she got trapped between them. She also revealed that Shah leaked a video wherein Qamar was insisting on a relationship with her.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2024