Model Town incident: Court seeks replies on Punjab govt’s pleas for new JIT

LAHORE: A Lahore High Court Larger Bench on Wednesday directed the counsel of petitioners to file written replies to two applications of the Punjab Government in defence of the new Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to probe the 2014 Model Town incident.

Headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti, the 7-member Bench was hearing the petitions challenging the constitution of the JIT formed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led provincial government.

Khurram Rafiq and other police officials facing trial in a private complaint of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) filed the petitions in 2019. A full bench on March 22, 2019, had suspended the notification of the JIT.

Resuming arguments on Wednesday, Advocate Azam Nazir Tarar, the counsel for petitioners, reiterated that the government played a fraud with the court by changing its stances. He said there were no documents on the record where the Advocate General had given an undertaking before the Supreme Court on Dec 12, 2019, to form the JIT. He said the government even failed to furnish any documents for the formation of the JIT when asked by the LHC on Jan 20, 2020.

However, he said, the government surprisingly came up with a new response before the larger bench in September saying an oral approval had been sought from the Cabinet before approving the ex post facto constitution of the JIT

Advocate Tarar argued that the matter was very sensitive as it entailed the death penalty and such fraudulent conduct of the government could not be tolerated. The bench directed the petitioners’ counsel to address on the next hearing the questions whether there was any direct order by the apex court for the formation of the JIT or whether a new investigation could be permitted at the present of the trial.