A Karachi court on Tuesday overturned a decision to conduct the PTI MNA Aamir Liaquat Hussain’s post-mortem.
District and Sessions Judge (East) Khalid Hussain Shahani overturned the decision of Judicial Magistrate (East) Wazeer Hussain Memon who had ordered Hussain’s postmortem on June 18. The ruling came in response to an appeal filed by Dua Aamir – daughter of the late televangelist and PTI MNA – challenging the court’s decision to allow exhumation of the body for an autopsy.
The petition seeking the autopsy was filed by a citizen of Karachi. In the court order, Additional Sessions Judge-II (East) Ghulam Mustafa Laghari said it seemed the magistrate had “committed material irregularity and illegality in passing the impugned order, which is illegal and requires interference by this court”. Thus, Judge Laghari said, the trial court’s order was illegal, set aside and allowed the instant revision application.
He explained that the case laws submitted by the counsel of Abdul Ahad -on whose petition the magistrate issued the order to exhume Aamir – were “distinguishable and not applicable” to the facts and circumstances of the current case.
In the June 18 order, while ordering the exhumation of Aamir Liaquat Hussain’s body, Judicial Magistrate (East) Wazeer Hussain Memon had observed that the cause of his death was still uncertain, which itself had raised questions about whether it was natural or unnatural and could only be ascertained after exhuming the body and its examination.
On June 22, Aamir Liaquat’s family challenged the magistrate’s decision in the Sindh High Court (SHC), which had then granted an interim stay against his exhumation. On July 28, the SHC disposed of their petition with a direction to challenge the order in question before the relevant sessions’ court and extended the stay order for 10 days or till a revision application was filed before the competent forum.
On August 6, Judge Laghari stayed the exhumation of Aamir Liaquat’s body for an autopsy till August 11 on an application filed by the children of the former lawmaker – Duaa-e-Aamir and Ahmed Aamir – who had challenged the June 18 verdict.