Court stays exhumation of Aamir Liaquat’s body till Aug 11

A sessions court on Saturday stayed exhumation of the late Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA and televangelist Dr Aamir Liaquat Hussain’s body for an autopsy until August 11.

Children of the former lawmaker, Dua-e-Aamir and Ahmed Aamir, approached the court challenging the June 18 order of a judicial magistrate that allowed a plea for the exhumation of his body to ascertain the actual cause of his death.

Hussain’s family had previously challenged the magistrate’s decision in the Sindh High Court (SHC), which granted an interim stay against the order. On July 28, the high court disposed of their petition with a direction to challenge the order in question before the relevant sessions court, and extended the stay order for 10 days or till a revision application was filed before the competent forum.

On Saturday, the children of the late politicians, moved a criminal revision application before Additional Sessions Judge-II (East) Ghulam Mustafa Laghari, requesting him to set aside the impugned order passed by the magistrate and grant a stay order against the exhumation of the body until the application was decided.

Their lawyer Zia Ahmed Awan argued that his clients could suffer an “irreparable loss” and the application at hand could become fruitless if the stay order was not granted.

The judge, without touching the merits of the magistrate’s order, suspended its operation till the next date of the hearing set for August 11.

On June 18, Judicial Magistrate East Wazeer Hussain Memon had ordered exhumation of Hussain’s body for an autopsy, observing that the cause of his death was still uncertain, which itself had raised the question whether it was natural or an unnatural, and that it could only be ascertained after the exhumation of the body and its examination. He had passed this order on an application moved by a citizen, Abdul Ahad.

Awan claimed that Ahad on account of his previous political rivalry with Hussain filed the application, which was later granted. He argued that the magistrate had no power to overrule the decision of his link judge, notwithstanding his order was legal or otherwise.

A link judge is deputed to entertain urgent matters of a court in the absence of its presiding officer.

“The magistrate while entertaining the application filed by Ahad bitterly failed to understand that his court had become functus officio in the said matter as his link judge has already allowed the petitioners (children of Hussain) to bury the body of the deceased; therefore, the application should have been dismissed and in case of any grievance, the citizen should have approached the appellate forum,” he contended.