THE Lahore High Court on Tuesday gave last opportunity to the federal government and Chairman Senate to file replies by April 20 in connection with a writ petition, seeking disqualification of Rehman Malik as Senator on the basis of his removal from service.
On previous hearing, Justice Sh. Azmat Saeed had referred the matter to Chief Justice to constitute a larger bench, and CJ had formed a two-member bench. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah is the other member of the bench.
On Tuesday, Rehman Malik submitted a reply, pleading that there was no legal justification to hear the case, as the President of Pakistan had already converted his removal from service into retirement. He prayed to the court to dismiss the petition.
The Election Commission of Pakistan also apprised the court through a written reply that no one raised any objection at the time of filing Rehman s nomination papers for senate seat. It was further told the court that the ECP acted in accordance with the law.
About the federal government s reply, Deputy Attorney General Ilyas Khan said he was assigned the task of pleading the case only a couple of days ago after the removal of Naveed Inayat Malik. He sought time to obtain reply from the federal government.
Pursuant to court s order, former DAG Naveed Inayat Malik had produced the copy of a notification under which Rehman s removal from services was converted into retirement.
A local citizen Mahfooz Ahmad moved the petition in which he submitted that Rehman Malik was removed from service by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in 1998 and as such he was not eligible to be elected Senate member.
Petitioner had also challenged the notification, which converted the removal of Rehman Malik into retirement, pleading that the President had no authority to issue such a notification. He requested the court to set aside the impugned notification and de-seat the respondent from senate seat.
Notice to NUML: A consumer court issued a notice to the National University of Modern Language (NUML) director academic by April 16 in a suit seeking damages for allegedly not refunding fee to a student.
Ansar Khalid, a resident of Model Town Flats, filed a petition in the consumer court, contending that the respondent director academic on May 24, 2009 advertised some study courses in newspapers. Petitioner said that after getting inspiration from the advertisement, he deposited Rs 45,000 first semester fee in National Bank of Pakistan at Aiwan-e-Adl Branch and got admission in MBA (evening) course with duration of two years. He said the court that on August 16, 2009 he went to the university to attend his first class and he came to know that the course had been converted into MBA MS with duration of four years. It was quite astonishing for him, he told the court. However, the respondent made an announcement to refund the fee of those students who had deposited it for MBA and were not interested in MBA MS.
