KARACHI, Jan 25: A five-member bench of the Sindh High Court reserved its verdict on Friday on the maintainability of suo motu proceedings and lawyers’ petitions on the May 12, 2007, mayhem in Karachi.

Advocate-General Dr Farogh Naseem questioned the validity of the proceedings under Article 199 of the Constitution as the provision could be invoked only by an aggrieved party.

The court, he said, had no suo motu power nor could it initiate proceedings at the instance of other parties. Citing a number of Indian and Pakistani cases, he said the courts have generally declined to intervene in large-scale disturbances owing to the futility of the exercise. Investigations, he said, were already in progress at the behest of aggrieved individuals and they could approach the court with any complaint against the investigation agency. The court could not, however, act as an investigation agency.

The AG was supported by the respondents’ counsel, including Iqtidar Ali Hashmi and Kazi Mohammad Ashraff. Deputy Attorney-General Rizwan A. Siddiqui and Additional Advocate-General Masood A. Noorani, who had hitherto been conducting the government’s case, adopted his arguments. Former adviser to the chief minister Wasim Akhtar, federal interior secretary Kamal Shah, former chief secretary Shakeel Durrani, former home secretary Ghulam Mohammad Mohtaram and other administration and police high-ups were among the respondents.

No amicus curiae or petitioner lawyer appeared despite repeated notices but Sindh High Court Bar Association President Rasheed A. Razvi submitted a statement on behalf of the SHCBA, one of the petitioners, on Friday. He said the seven-member bench initially seized of the matter impliedly overruled the objections to the suo motu proceedings by adopting a questionnaire formulated by amicus curiae Qazi Faez Isa as a means to arriving at the truth. The questionnaire agitated a number of relevant issues including the command and control structure of the security apparatus, disarming of police and the erection of barricades around the high court building.

He said five members of the previous bench were illegally relieved along with other judges and chief justice of the Sindh High Court under the provisional constitution order of November 3, 2007. The SHCBA and the entire legal fraternity were of the view that the judges who refused to take a fresh oath under the PCO still held office and the bench constituted by them alone was competent to hear the case.

Joining the issue, the AG submitted that the PCO and all actions taken under it have already been upheld by the Supreme Court and the SC decision was binding on all courts. Objections were taken to the promulgation of the PCO and the subsequent measures before the apex court but were rejected by it and the matter could not be agitated now. The new bench was fully empowered to hear the case under the Constitution and the law, he said.

The five-member bench that heard the case after Nov 3 consisted of Chief Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro and Justices Munib Ahmed Khan, Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, Abdur Rehman Farooq Pirzada and Dr Rana M. Shamim.