ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday restrained police from taking action against additional secretary for information, managing director of PTV, and others in the terrorism cases registered against them in different cities of the country.
A single bench of Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the petition moved by Additional Secretary Information Shaheera Shahid, Pakistan Television (PTV) MD Sohail Khan, and other PTV officials, challenging the FIRs registered against them at various police stations.
The IHC bench directed the secretary interior to apprise the court after collecting the details of all the cases in this matter. It also issued notices to the attorney general for Pakistan to assist the court in this regard and deferred the hearing till October 13 for further proceedings.
The petitioners approached the IHC to quash the first information reports (FIRs) registered against them in different cities and prayed the court to terminate the cases against them by declaring the same as illegal.
They adopted the stance that the petitioners are civil servants and terrorism cases had been registered against them. They added that they are loyal citizens of the country and they have nothing to do with any political party.
They informed the court that 44 news channels including PTV broadcast the press conference of Federal Minister Mian Javed Latif and requested the court to quash the FIRs registered against them.
In this matter, the PML-N leader, Javed Latif, has also approached the IHC and the same bench would take up Latif’s petition challenging the FIRs registered against him at various police stations on Tuesday (today).
In his petition, Latif said that the FIRs had been registered in Punjab over his utterances during a TV programme broadcast from Islamabad and contended that such cases could not be registered anywhere other than the federal capital since the incident had taken place there.
He further said that it was the exclusive domain of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to take action if his utterances were indecent and offensive. He requested the court to declare these FIRs as illegal.
The FIRs against the minister were lodged under Section 9 (punishment for acts intended or likely to stir up sectarian hatred) and 11X-3 (responsibility for creating civil commotion).
The PML-N leader stated that criminal cases could not be instituted on basis of mere criticizing a politician. He added that he had addressed a press conference to bring some facts about PTI Chairman Imran Khan on record.
In one FIR, the complainant said that he came across a press conference addressed by Latif on September 14 (broadcast by TV) during which he hurled “disturbing accusations” at PTI Chairman Khan in the name of religion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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