Daily Times

LAHORE: Rejecting the Punjab government’s appeal that the Model Town inquiry report should not be made public, a newly formed full bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday decided to hear from October 2 the government’s inter-court appeal challenging the verdict of a single bench for releasing the report by Justice Ali Baqar Najfi into the 2014 tragedy.

The new bench is headed by Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh and includes Justice Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmad Sheikh, and will hear the matter on a daily basis.

The bench observed that the questions raised by the government were of legal importance and needed to be answered.

A single bench of Justice Sayyed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi on September 21 had ordered the Punjab home secretary to make public the Justice Najfi report and provided a copy to the families of those killed and injured in the incident.

The counsel for the government at first questioned the jurisdiction of the single bench to decide the matter, claiming that eight identical petitions on the same matter were already pending before a full bench and a single bench could not decide it.

Earlier on Monday, a full bench of the Lahore High Court dismissed as withdrawn six petitions against the composition of an inquiry tribunal and for the release of the Model Town report. The counsel for Punjab government, Khwaja Harris, opposed the withdrawal of the petitions.

Published in Daily Times, September 26^th 2017.