Model Town case: LHC rejects plea to summon Sharifs, 11 others

LAHORE: A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday with 2-1 majority upheld an anti-terrorism court’s earlier decision of not summoning 12 PML-N leaders – Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and others – on the private complaint of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT)/Minhaj-ul-Quran International regarding the 2014 Model Town shootout.

The PAT had challenged the anti-terrorism court (ATC) order, requesting the LHC to set it aside. Meanwhile, former Punjab IGP Mushtaq Sukhera had also moved the court against the ATC’s order of summoning him, but the LHC dismissed his appeal too.

The bench headed by Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan had reserved the verdict on June 27 and announced the same on Wednesday with a 2-1 majority as Justice Khan differed from the two other judges, Justice Alia Neelum and Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem. Justice Khan, in his dissenting note, accepted PAT’s appeal and directed the ATC to summon Nawaz and 12 others.

The majority decision says, “The order of non-summoning the respondent No 1 to 12, does not suffer from any illegality as learned Judge ATC-II, Lahore, has examined all the witnesses which the petitioner/complainant desired to produce and intended to rely upon. There has thus been substantial compliance of the provisions of Section 202 of CrPC.

“The allegations averred in the private complaint and stated by the witnesses included petitioner/complainant on oath were found to be afterthought and does not disclose essential ingredients for constituting the offences punishable under the Pakistan Penal Code,” it further said.

Justice Khan in his dissenting note says: “The impugned order to the extent of non-summoning respondents No 1 to 12 is held to be against law as the sufficiency of material available on file has not been properly appreciated, thus the same is set aside. The case is remanded to the trial court with the direction that it is duty of the court to determine the falsehood or truthfulness of allegations levelled in the complaint and in the light of above made observations, the court may hold further inquiry into the matter or get it investigated through any person/agency or a team of experts, as the investigation by police officers does not appear to be appropriate exercise for the reason that number of police officers are involved in the case and have already been summoned.”

The same bench also dismissed former Punjab IGP’s plea against summoning by the trial court and directed him to appear before the ATC to face the charges. The 12 persons against whom the ATC had rejected the complaint were former prime minister Nawaz, former chief minister Shahbaz, Hamza Shahbaz, former provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah, former railways minister Khawaja Saad Rafique, former defence minister Khawaja Asif, former information minister Pervaiz Rashid, former state minister Abid Sher Ali, former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar, the then personal secretary to chief minister Syed Tauqir Shah, former home secretary Azam Suleman and the then Lahore commissioner Rashid Mahmood Langrial.

Sukhera and 127 other government officials had challenged the ATC's decision to the effect of their summoning by the trial court in the complaint moved by the PAT. The ATC in April this year indicted 116 police officials on the private complaint for their trial on the charges of killing PAT workers in the Model Town incident. The 116 accused indicted by the court pleaded not guilty and opted to contest their trial.

On June 17, 2014, 14 people were killed and 100 others injured after police launched an assault on the PAT supporters gathered outside the residence of Qadri in Model Town, Lahore. A subsequent judicial inquiry report on the incident pointed fingers at Rana Sanaullah and the Punjab Police for what had transpired that day.

Though Justice Najafi himself did not fix responsibility for the tragedy, he invited readers to review the facts and circumstances and "easily fix the responsibility of the unfortunate Minhaj-ul-Quran incident" themselves.

On the other hand, PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri on Wednesday announced to challenge the decision, as he told the office bearers of his party’s lawyers wing at the PAT secretariat that the grounds on which the trial court summoned the police officers were weaker than the evidence against the Sharif brothers.

He said the entire world watched the massacre on TV for hours and the government ministers did not move to stop it. He claimed that Shahbaz, Rana Sanaullah, Dr Tauqeer and others had confessed to their role through affidavits before Justice Baqar Najfi commission. Qadri alleged that the influential and wealthy accused were being treated above the law but the pleas of the heirs of the Model Town martyrs had been left unheard.