LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) after hearing the Punjab government’s appeal against the order earlier on Tuesday (today) directed the release of the Model Town tragedy inquiry report.
A three-member bench hearing headed by Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh reviewed government’s plea against the single bench order notified earlier.
Provincial government’s counsel Khawaja Harris said that the single bench delivered an order without even hearing from the provincial government’s end.
He questioned the validity of the hearing of the writ petition filed by the single bench when a similar matter was already being heard by the full bench.
The counsel for the victims, Azhar Siddique said Harris is compromising the judicial process which led to a verbal clash between the two counsels leading the court to admonish the petitioner’s arguments.
An intra-court appeal had already filed by the Punjab government against the September 21 decision of a single bench ordering the release of the Model Town inquiry report authored by LHC Justice Baqar Najafi.
Similarly, on September 21st, Justice Mazahar Ali Naqvi ordered the Punjab home secretary to make the report public, the report was authored by LHC Justice Baqar Najafi against the Model Town killings and provides a complete list of those killed and injured in the 2014 incident.
The Punjab government in its appeal against the decision challenged the jurisdiction of the single bench court on crucial decisions related to this report because as many as eight similar petitions on the same issue were already pending in the full bench.
