LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday asked Advocate General of Punjab Ahmad Jamal Sukhera whether the top law officer of a province was also bound to have written instructions from the government to give any undertaking before courts besides presence of relevant public official as per the principles set by the superior courts for the law officers.

Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan posed the query to AGP Sukhera while heading a full bench seized with petitions against the formation of second Joint Investigation Team (JIT) by the provincial government to probe the Model Town incident of 2014.

Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan and Justice Alia Neelum are the other members of the bench.

In a reference to a Supreme Court’s decision disposed of in the light of an undertaking by then advocate general, the senior judge observed that there was a principle set by the superior courts that a law officer would require to have instructions in writing from the authority concerned to give an undertaking on behalf of the government before a court. He said the presence of officials concerned in court was also needed as per the principle.

The judge asked Mr Sukhera that the bench would like to know whether the same principle also applied to advocate general of a province.

Earlier, the bench heard initial arguments by Advocate Azhar Siddique on behalf of Jawad Hamid of Idara Minhajul Quran, the complainant in the Model Town case, against the maintainability of the petitions.

The counsel, however, did not press his objection against the constitution of the full bench as the judges questioned him whether members of a bench constituted by the chief justice could hear a challenge to its formation.

The counsel further argued that the petitioners in the case did not come to court with clean hands. He also submitted an application on behalf of the complainant for the adjournment of the hearing. However, the bench asked him to file the application in the office as per the rules.

The bench adjourned hearing till Thursday (today) for further arguments by the counsel.

The bench asked AGP Sukhera to nominate any other law officer for the court’s assistance on next hearings if he was not available.

The government had constituted on Jan 3, 2019 the second JIT for a fresh probe into the Model Town carnage. However, the bench had on March 22 suspended the notification of the JIT.

Khurram Rafiq and other police officials facing trial in the Model Town case had challenged the legitimacy of the new JIT.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2019