Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice (CJ) Malik Shahzad Ahmad on Thursday said that state departments are causing serious threats to and harassing the courts and their staff, along with creating hurdles in procedures.
The chief justice’s remarks were made in the written order for a case on the alleged threats to a judge of a Sargodha anti-terrorism court (ATC) and his harassment by the intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
CJ Ahmad had reserved his verdict in the matter on June 13. The verdict was announced in Thursday’s hearing.
The written order said: “It is unfortunate to note that it is duty of the state to provide protection and pay respect to the courts but perusal of the special reports sent by the learned judge ATC Sargodha and assistant of the said court shows that prima facie the state departments have been causing serious threats/harassment to the courts and its staff and creating hurdles in the court process. “Furthermore, the state departments have denied the constitutional rights of citizens of this country of having the protection of law and to be treated in accordance with the law while restraining them to approach the above-mentioned court.”
The order termed the Punjab police chief’s report in the matter “highly unsatisfactory”, saying that it did not mention whether any ISI official was approached by the police to verify the ATC judge’s allegations against the agency.
In one of many examples cited in the order about police and state departments impeding the work of the judges, LHC chief justice said that 12 transfer applications were filed by the Punjab prosecutor general for the transfer of cases from Rawalpindi ATC-1.
“In the said transfer applications, it was main ground of the prosecution branch that as a reference/complaint has been filed against the judge of the abovementioned court, therefore, the cases pending in his court may be transferred to any other court of competent jurisdiction.
