PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday temporarily stopped the Punjab police and other law-enforcement agencies from arresting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur in any of the cases against him.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Shakeel Ahmad directed Mr Gandapur to petition the Lahore High Court within a month to order Punjab authorities to inform him about the cases registered against him by the police in the province.

It disposed of the plea of the chief minister for the issuance of orders to the police, Federal Investigation Agency, National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and anti-corruption establishment (ACE) to produce details of cases against him.

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Last February, the bench stopped the KP police and other law-enforcement agencies from arresting the petitioner until further orders.

Asks KP CM to move Lahore High Court for details of cases registered against him in Punjab

Lawyer Ali Azim Afridi appeared for the petitioner, while KP advocate general Shah Faisal Uthmankhel and additional deputy prosecutor general of the NAB Mohammad Ali also attended the hearing.

The court was informed that the law-enforcement agencies other than the ACE had already produced information about those cases in court.

The bench wondered how the chief minister couldn’t get that report from the ACE, which was a provincial department.

It observed that almost two months had passed since the petitioner assumed the office of chief minister, but he was still unable to get access to the records of cases registered by the ACE against him.

The NAB’s representative said just a single inquiry was in progress against the petitioner, but the bureau had no intention to arrest him in that matter.

Additional director (legal) of the FIA Abdur Rehman Afridi said that only two inquiries were being conducted by the Cyber-Crime Wing against the petitioner in Dera Ismail Khan district.

The AG had already informed the court during a previous hearing that there were six cases registered against the petitioner in Dera Ismail Khan by the police, while the challan (final charge sheet) had already been submitted to the relevant courts in those cases.

The counsel for the petitioner said that there were reports about the registration of multiple cases against the chief minister in Punjab but the provincial government wasn’t providing him with their details.

He feared that the petitioner would be arrested in any of the cases about which he had no knowledge.

The lawyer said Article 19-A of the Constitution guaranteed people’s access to information, it was the right of the petitioner to get details of the cases registered against him or any inquiry started against him by any of the law-enforcement agencies.

When the bench asked the lawyer if the KP government had taken up the issue with the Punjab government, he replied in the negative.

It observed that it would be appropriate for the petitioner to file a petition with the Lahore High Court to get access to the information about the cases registered against him in Punjab.

Meanwhile, the bench also directed the provincial home department to inform its counterpart in Punjab about the protective bails granted to PTI leader and Member of the Punjab Assembly Mian Mohammad Aslam Iqbal.

When the bench began hearing into the petition of Mr Aslam for details of the cases registered against him by the federal and provincial governments, the counsel for him, Ali Azim Afridi, said though the high court had granted bail to the petitioner in different cases, the Punjab police were conducting raids to arrest him.

He complained that the police had constantly been harassing the petitioner and even raided a wedding ceremony for his daughter a few days ago.

Besides issuing directives to the home department, the bench also directed the KP advocate general to inform his Punjab counterpart about its orders against harassing the petitioner.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2024