Daily Times

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Monday served notices to the respondents in a case filed by the Islamabad police seeking further physical remand of PTI leader Shahbaz Gill in the sedition case.

Acting Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard the case seeking review of the decision of judicial magistrate rejecting the request of prosecution for further physical remand of the accused.

Advocate General Islamabad Barrister Jahangir Jadoon, Special Prosecutor Chaudhry Haseeb Muhammad and Rizwan Abbasi Advocate appeared before the court.

The court asked the lawyers to first give arguments on maintainability of the review petition. Rizwan Abbasi Advocate gave references of various judgments of the court and argued that this case was maintainable.

Advocate general Islamabad said Gill had given a controversial statement on a TV channel with regard to the state institutions and the government had taken serious notice of this statement and an FIR was registered against him.

Jadoon said in his statement Gill had targeted sensitive state institutions which had given numerous sacrifices for the country.

The court asked the prosecution why it required more physical remand and case was at what stage. The advocate general said that the case was about the decisions of lower court.

The court observed that one fact was that the lower court had dismissed the review petition of prosecution and second was that the physical remand of the accused had expired. The advocate general contended that laptop and other devices were yet to be recovered from the accused due to which the prosecution required his further physical remand. The court adjourned the case till Tuesday (today). It may be mentioned that previously a lower court had dismissed the request of prosecution for further physical remand of Shahbaz Gill and he was sent to jail on judicial remand. Meanwhile, Gill’s legal team also approached the IHC for seeking termination of FIR against him. It prayed the court to quash the FIR registered against Mr. Gill as it didn’t meet the merits.

Separately, a district and sessions court took up a petition filed by the PTI leader seeking bail in the case.

When the hearing commenced at 11:30am, Additional Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry sought the case record. However, Deputy Superintendent of Police Hassan Raza told the court that the record was with the IHC. The judge observed that a similar matter was pending with the IHC. But Faisal argued that the plea could be heard in the lower court even if a similar petition was underway in a high court.

He said as per the law, “no person can be kept in jail without a reason for even a minute”, and he would only present his arguments once the case record was presented. Hence, the judge adjourned the hearing till 12:30pm Tuesday (today) and directed both the parties to come prepared with their arguments. “I will not hear any excuses tomorrow,” she added.