LAHORE – The Lahore High Court (LHC) reserved its verdict on an Intra-Court Appeal (ICA) filed by the Punjab government challenging a single bench order to make the Model Town inquiry report public.
During the hearing on Friday,the full bench heard the arguments of Punjab government counsel Khawaja Harris in rebuttal of contentions raised by the counsel of heirs of the Model Town incident victims.
Contradicting the respondents’ arguments, including provision of information under Article 19 (A), Khawaja Haris submitted that the right to information was subject to reasonable restrictions.
He contended that it was feared that public and social order would be disturbed if the report was made public, whereas the government was duty-bound to maintain it.
‘If the implementation of fundamental rights was affected, than other conventions could be suspended’ he argued.
The counsel said two FIRs were registered in connection with Model Town incident and these were pending before an anti-terrorism court.
Haris argued that if the Model Town report was made public, it would definitely affect the right of fair trial of the parties.
Reaffirming his point, he submitted that the government ordered the Model Town inquiry for its use and the decision to make it public rested with it.
The advocate continued that the single bench ordered the release of the Model Town report despite the fact that six identical petitions were pending before a full bench.
The single bench of Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi had, on Sept 21, ordered the Punjab home secretary to make the Model Town report public.
After the arguments concluded, Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh heading the full bench comprising Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmad, reserved the verdict.
