PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has rejected the bail petition of a Swat resident arrested on sedition and cyber-crime charges last month.

A bench consisting of Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar and Justice Shahid Khan observed that an alternate remedy was available with petitioner Bakht Rahim to approach the relevant court in Peshawar under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca), 2017, for relief.

The bench ruled that through a notification issued in March 2017, the federal government, in consultation with the chief justice of the Peshawar High Court, had conferred powers of presiding officer under the Peca for the whole of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Peshawar’s district and sessions judge and a judicial magistrate.

An FIR was registered at the Rahimabad police station on Oct 17, 2023, by station house officer (SHO) Habib Said Khan under the Pakistan Penal Code’s sections 124-A (sedition) and 505 (statement conducing to public mischief) and the Peca’s Section 18 (tampering with communication equipment).

PHC asks him to approach relevant court under Peca for relief

The SHO claimed that he, while surfing Facebook on his mobile phone at the police station, came across a “derogatory” post by the petitioner, Bakht Rahim, about the army chief and two other military officers.

He insisted that the petitioner had blamed those army officers for the arrest of the then PTI leader,Farrukh Habib, sarcastically saying Habib was held as if he hadattacked Palestine.

The SHO added that the petitioner’s remarks were meant to incite hatred against the Pakistan Army among people and endanger public property.

The petitioner’s counsel said his client had filed a bail petition with the judicial magistrate in Swat but the latter didn’t hear it declaring he didn’t have the jurisdiction to do so under the Peca.

He claimed that some other petitioners also approached that magistrate but their petitions were dismissed.

The lawyer pointed out that in another case titled “Adil Khan versus Ghazan Khan,” the petitioner had approached the judicial magistrate in Peshawar, who was mentioned in the government’s notification, but he had also not entertained that petition.

He argued that to prevent a similar treatment by Peshawar’s judicial magistrate, the petitioner approached the high court under its Constitutional Jurisdiction mentioned in Article 199 of the Constitution.

The counsel claimed that his client was innocent and was falsely implicated in the case.

He added that there was no “impartial either circumstantial or ocular” evidence against the petitioner to connect him with the commission of the offence.

He added that merely on allegations levelled by the SHO, the petitioner could not be kept behind the bars for indefinite period.

The lawyer argued that the local police had no jurisdiction under the Peca to register the FIR.

Assistant advocate general Hafiz Ashfaq Ahmad opposed the petition arguing that the federal government had issued a notification under Section 44 of the Peca authorising two judicial officers of Peshawar to hear cases related to cyber-crimes.

He said that instead of directly approaching the high court, the petitioner should have moved the subordinate court.

The bench observed that the petitioner invoked the constitutional jurisdiction of the high court instead of approaching the relevant judicial magistrate for relief in the sedition case.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2023