Peshawar High Court judges on Tuesday referred petitions challenging the detention of former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi and other Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders to the chief justice for the constitution of a larger bench, after government lawyers failed to file replies ordered by the court.
A larger bench ruling could decide whether the detention of an elected provincial leadership under emergency rule survives judicial scrutiny, in a case that has become a test of the balance between security powers and provincial autonomy.
A division bench headed by Justice Syed Arshad Ali took up the petitions on Tuesday, Dawn reported. The court had given the respondents 10 days to file replies under its October 20 directives, but the replies were not filed in line with that order.
“We refer this case to the chief justice to constitute a larger bench,” the bench said, according to Dawn.
Afridi’s brother, Mohammad Aamir, filed one of the petitions on October 13, alleging that Afridi was taken from the Chief Minister’s House on the night emergency rule was imposed. The petitions also seek the recovery of provincial assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati, members of the National Assembly Junaid Akbar and Dr Amjid Ali, and several other PTI leaders, whose whereabouts the government has not disclosed.
The advocate general told the court he had received the government’s report only on Tuesday and needed three more days to submit a response. The bench expressed dissatisfaction, observing that the chief minister was missing and the Home Department should have information about his whereabouts, Hum English reported.
A federal minister confirmed a day after governor’s rule was imposed that Afridi and some cabinet members were in preventive custody, but Afridi has not been seen in public since October 11, according to Dawn.
The federal government imposed emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on October 11 under Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution, citing what it called the provincial government’s deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf rejects the intervention as unconstitutional and politically motivated.
Parliament later approved the proclamations in a joint sitting. The Pakistan Daily reported that replies in the governor’s rule petitions have been sought by November 7, with the substantive hearing listed for November 10.
Separately, an Islamabad district and sessions court on Monday upheld non-bailable arrest warrants against Afridi in a case under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act over his repeated absence from proceedings, and adjourned that case until November 15, UrduPoint reported.
What is confirmed is the referral to a larger bench; what is not confirmed is when that bench will hear the case, and the government has still not disclosed Afridi’s whereabouts beyond the preventive-custody confirmation. The next known dates in the related proceedings are November 7 for replies and November 15 for the Islamabad court’s hearing.
