Muhammad Atif Vs Govt.

JUDGMENT SHEET

IN THE PESHAWAR HIGH COURT, ABBOTTABAD BENCH

JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT

W.P No: 118-A of 2016

JUDGMENT

Date of hearing..............................................................

Appellant(s)/Petitioner (s).................................................

Respondent (s).............................................................

QALANDAR ALI KHAN ,J:- Muhammad Atif,

Syed Abid Hussain Shah and Syed Faisal Hussain Shah Gillani, petitioners, have moved the instant writ petition thereby assailing their detention orders under Section 3 (1) of the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960 (3 MPO), dated 29.01.2016 by the Deputy Commissioner Abbottabad (respondent No.2), on the ground of staging a protest rally at Fowara Chowk on 28.01.2016, “resulting in trafficking jam at KKH for about five hours” and also “their involvement in obnoxious, anti social activities and provoking the general public for agitation and disruption of the peaceful environment of the District”, which could not be “ruled out in the prevailing

law and order situation of the District”. Their activities were, as such, adjudged prejudicial to public safety and maintenance of public order by respondent No.2, who exercised the powers vested in him under Section 3 MPO and issued their detention orders and confinement in Central Jail D.I. Khan for a period of 30 days of their arrest, vide the impugned orders, issued respectively on 29.01.2016 and 31.01.2016.

2.Mr. Muhammad Naeem Abbasi, Additional

Advocate General, appeared in response to Court notice;

and arguments of learned counsel for the petitioners and learned Additional AG heard, and record perused.

3.It may be pointed out, at the out set, that the petitioners in the instant writ petition were also members of that protest rally against shifting of mini Adda, which led to the registration of a case under Sections 341/147/149 PPC read with Section 16 MPO and Section 3⁄4 Loud speaker Act in P.S Cantt Abbottabad vide FIR No.126 dated 28.01.2016, against a number of persons including the petitioners and Syed Salim Shah, petitioner in W.P No.91- A/2016, decided by this Court vide judgment dated

4.After threadbare discussion on merits of the impugned detention order against petitioner in the said W.P No.91-A/2016, it was held in unequivocal terms that after

registration of a criminal case on the basis of same occurrence, the District Administration had no justification to also resort to preventive detention under Section 3 MPO.

5.Since, the detention order under Section 3 MPO against members of the protest rally facing similar charges has already been declared illegal, unlawful, without jurisdiction, without lawful authority and perverse, in the aforementioned W.P No.91-A/2016; the instant writ petition is also accepted on the grounds enumerated in the judgment of this Court dated 03.02.2016 in the said writ petition; and the impugned detention orders of the petitioners under Section 3 MPO are, likewise, declared illegal, unlawful, without jurisdiction, without lawful authority and perverse. Resultantly, the petitioners be set at liberty from the prison where they are confined at present under the impugned detention orders.

Announced.

JUDGE

JUDGE