Govt seeks early SC hearing of Shahbaz’s fly abroad decision

ISLAMABAD/ LAHORE: The federal government Tuesday requested the Supreme Court (SC) to fix its petition for early hearing, seeking suspension of May 7 order of the Lahore High Court (LHC), granting one-time permission to leader of the opposition in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif to go abroad.

The government, through interior secretary, filed an application in the SC, praying for fixing its petition for hearing at an early date “in the larger interest of justice”.

It submitted that its valuable rights are involved in the titled case, and if it is not fixed for early hearing, it may suffer an irreparable loss and injury to its rights.

Earlier, it had filed a petition under Article 185(3) of the Constitution, challenging the order passed by the LHC on May 7 in the petition filed by Shehbaz Sharif challenging the placement of his name on the blacklist/no-fly list. The LHC had granted one-time permission to Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) President Shehbaz Sharif to go abroad for treatment.

Meanwhile, Justice Ali Baqar Najafi of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday overruled an office objection to a civil miscellaneous application filed by Shehbaz Sharif, seeking implementation of a court order that gave him a one-time permission to go abroad for medical treatment.

The judge observed that if the court orders allowing Shehbaz Sharif to go abroad for medical treatment would be thrown to the wind, the law would take its own course.

Earlier, the LHC registrar office had objected to maintainability of the application, saying that Shehbaz Sharif did not approach the relevant forum, the executive authority, and directly moved the court.

Later the counsel for Shehbaz Sharif filed a civil miscellaneous application, which was fixed before Justice Najafi for hearing as an objection case. Justice Najafi overruled the office objection and directed the registrar office to fix the application for hearing before an appropriate bench.

Later, the registrar office fixed the hearing of the application for Wednesday (today) before Justice Najafi.

The judge had permitted Shehbaz to visit the United Kingdom for one time for medical treatment. However, the immigration officials at the Lahore airport stopped Shehbaz from boarding a reserved flight on the pretext that his name was included in the Provincial National Identification List (PNIL), another category of no-fly list, which was not updated yet.