KARACHI: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Wednesday petitioned the Sindh High Court impugning two orders of the provincial home department about planned arrest and preventive detention of over 40 party leaders and workers under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance.

Petitioner Shujaat Ali Khan, a PTI leader, argued that the impugned orders have threatened arrest and detention yet to be carried out, questioned the purported authority and legality of such orders and sought preventive constitutional protection for the persons named therein.

Citing the chief secretary, home secretary, inspector general of police and several other police officials as respondents, Petitioner Khan submitted in the petition that he was the senior vice president of the PTI Sindh chapter and invoked constitutional jurisdiction for protection of liberty and fundamental rights of the persons expressly named in the impugned preventive detention orders.

He also contended that the impugned orders have constituted a mala fide, colourable, arbitrary and politically motivated exercise of power, issued for an extraneous and collateral purpose, namely the suppression of political opposition and peaceful democratic activity and not for the genuine maintenance of public order as contemplated by law.

Opposition party asks SHC to declare directives ‘unconstitutional, illegal’

The counsel for petitioner, Ali Tahir, argued that the preventive detention orders were issued on Oct 12 and Oct 13 in respect of 15 and 26 leaders/workers of the party, including former MNA Alamgir Khan.

He also submitted that directives were issued through the impugned orders for arrest of the respective persons, their detention for 30 days from the date of arrest and to be placed in the custody of the senior superintendent Central Prison.

The lawyer further contended that both impugned orders lacked specific intelligence, individual acts or concrete material and merely relied upon a generalised allegation of instigating the public to block roads or highways and organise sit-ins.

Referring to some judgments of the SHC handed down in 2023 in identical matters, he maintained that as per these rulings, mere invocation of public order, without disclosure of concrete material, specific acts or individualised satisfaction, did not meet the constitutional threshold for preventive detention.

The counsel argued the SHC had already held in clear and unequivocal terms that the home secretary or the chief secretary lacked lawful authority to issue preventive detention orders under section 3(1) of the MPO Ordinance in the absence of a valid decision of the provincial cabinet while the impugned orders have been issued without any disclosed approval or decision of the cabinet.

He also contended that the impugned orders were based upon requests recorded in police letters, dated Oct 12 and 13, yet the operative reasoning in each order was substantially identical despite separate lists of the persons and such a standard-form approach and absence of any disclosed individual consideration of each person’s circumstances strongly suggested “non-application of mind” and the complete departmental and police records ought to be summoned.

He further submitted that the persons listed in these orders faced the imminent danger of arrest and detention on the basis of undifferentiated and unexplained grounds and the impugned MPO orders and all actions taken thereunder were unconstitutional and without lawful authority.

The petitioner pleaded to declare both impugned orders as unconstitutional, illegal, void ab initio and of no legal effect.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2026