Private lab clears IHC employee who had tested positive in NIH.

Byline: Malik Asad

ISLAMABAD -- An employee of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), who was diagnosed with Covid-19 by the test report of National Institute of Health (NIH), tested negative by a private laboratory.

The confirmation that a lower division clerk Atif Mehmood as coronavirus patient had sparked panic in the IHC as he was the only case in the IHC since the pandemic surfaced in Pakistan in February.

IHC chief justice at the very outset issued a social distancing policy and on his direction strict preventive measures have been adopted in the IHC with the help of the district administration.

However, following the confirmation of a positive Covid-19 case, IHC registrar Sajid Baloch hurriedly issued a circular that states that the competent authority has approved a standard operating procedure (SOP) to 'close down the High Court'.

Subsequently, the IHC judicial branch cancelled all the cases fixed for hearing before all the seven benches.

Court administration seeks explanation over contradictory report

IHC Chief Justice later on issued direction to fix the urgent matters for hearing only.

Besides, only skeleton staff was asked to attend their respective offices.

According to the details, the IHC employee tested positive after the court administration decided to subject all employees of the writ branch to testing where another employee was suspected of contracting coronavirus since his family members tested positive and he has been quarantined at home.

IHC administration referred the matter to the NIH through district administration, which performed the test for SARS-Co-V2, and detected coronavirus in lower division clerk Atif Mehmood.

A colleague of Mehmood told Dawn that after testing positive, Mehmood almost fainted and started weeping. He then proceeded to home where his father took...