Fawad's arrest: Contempt plea filed against cops for flouting LHC orders.

LAHORE -- A plea was filed in Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday, seeking contempt proceedings against 16 police officials including inspector generals of Punjab and Islamabad, Secretary and Additional Secretary Interior over flouting court orders repeatedly by not producing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Chaudhry Fawad Hussain.

Petitioner Nabeel Shahzad, one of Fawad's cousins, filed the petition through advocate Azhar Siddique contending that a plea was submitted seeking the recovery of the PTI leader to which the LHC passed repeated orders after short intervals, directing police officials including the Islamabad and Punjab IGPs but all in vain as the officials did not bother to comply with the court orders.

"Petition came up for hearing before the court at around 12:10pm and this court was gracious enough to pass an order and thereby direct the learned officers to ask the respondents to produce Fawad Chaudhry at 1:30pm on January 25, 2023, and this order was duly conveyed to the contemnors/respondents but Fawad Chaudhry was not produced," the counsel added.

The petition stated that as the matter was again taken up after a short interval, the same direction was given to respondents by the court but the PTI leader was not produced.

The order was defied although the news was aired on social media and TV channels. This time directions were given to the inspector generals of Islamabad and Punjab to appear in person along with Fawad but even then neither appeared nor Fawad was produced, it said.

This act of the respondents is not only highly contemptuous but is also untoward and amounts to destruction of the entire judicial system in a highly condemnable way and manner and the Punjab administration has girded up its lion to sabotage this highly esteemed judicial system.

However, Azhar said that the petition...