KP lawyers can now get prohibited bore licences

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to issue licences for prohibited bore, including those of Kalashnikovs, to lawyers in the province for self-protection.
A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Lal Jan Khattak heard the writ petitions of a lawyer Shabbir Hussain Gigyani and Peshawar High Court Bar Association seeking licences for arms of prohibited bore.
In a short order, the court stated that the lawyers would submit applications for arms’ licences in their respective high court bar associations to be further processed by the concerned deputy commissioners.
The lawyers of Peshawar would submit applications with the Peshawar High Court Bar Associations (PHCBA) and others would file pleas in the high court circuit benches at Mingora, Abbottabad, Dera Ismail Khan and Bannu.
During the course of hearing, the PHCBA general secretary informed the bench that the doctors and teachers were allowed to carry prohibited arms on verbal directions of the KP police heads as there was no notification in written with the government.
The bench issued directives to the PTI-led provincial government to issue prohibited arms’ licenses to the lawyers for self-defense because they were under attack and were being target killed.Additional Advocate General (AAG) Qaiser Ali Shah represented the provincial government during the hearing of the petition.
On Wednesday, the PHC chief justice had expressed concern over the law and order situation and observed that the government should declare the country a licence-free society or issue licenses to the people if it could not provide security to citizens.
The petition, filed by Peshawar-based lawyer Shabbir Hussain Gigyani, was later converted into a writ petition and the PHCBA argued the case for issuing arms licences of Kalashnikov rifles to the province’s lawyers for self-protection.
The petitioner had sought licenses of AK-47 (Kalashnikov) and other prohibited weapons to the lawyers to protect themselves against attacks.The lawyers’ case seeking prohibited arms licences got a boost after the target killing of two senior lawyers in Tank district on Monday.
According to the PHCBA, lawyers are being threatened and killed every day because of their profession. Lawyers pointed out that due to target killings and abduction of doctors and the December 16 massacre at the Army Public School and College, the provincial government allowed the doctors and teachers to carry arms for self-protection. They said that lawyers were suffering attacks and thus had a strong case to be issued licenses for prohibited bore weapons.
Meanwhile, the Peshawar High Court was told on Thursday that the provincial government as per the court’s decision reinstated 23 social organisers of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) on January 26.
Counsel for the MNCH, Ghulam Mahiyuddin Malik, produced the reinstatement notification before the bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Musarrat Hilali. He said that one social organiser had died.
To the court’s query about non-payment of four years’ salary of the petitioners, the lawyer sought some time, saying their salaries would be released from the federal government. He also said that the government would see whether they had worked for another organisation in the four years or not.
The bench directed the respondents, including secretary, director general Health Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and provincial coordinator of MNCH Dr Sahib Gul to release all salaries of the social organisers within a month or else they would face contempt of court proceedings.
In another case, the Green Bench of the PHC on Thursday ordered closure of 45 marble units in Buner district over non-compliance with Environment Protection Orders (EPO). A two-member bench comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Syed Afsar Shah issued the orders in an application filed by Environment Protection Agency (EPA) KP.
The agency had requested the court to take action against these marble units for constantly violating environment rules laid down for maintenance of healthy environ in the area.The bench also directed the local administration, deputy commissioner and Buner district police officer to enforce the Environment Protection Order issued by the EPA.The EPA had claimed in the application that there are hundreds of marble units in Buner district which created water and air pollution.