The Lahore Excessive Courtroom (LHC) on Saturday fastened for listening to a petition moved by Aurat March organisers towards the deputy commissioner’s choice to disclaim them permission to stage the march citing “safety issues”.
The Aurat March organising committee had final month requested a no objection certificates (NOC) from the district administration to carry a rally on March 8 at Nasser Bagh, Lahore, adopted by a march across the perimeter of the park.
Nevertheless, Deputy Commissioner (DC) Rafia Haider had rejected the plea citing “the present safety situation, risk alerts, and legislation and order scenario, and in gentle of actions like controversial playing cards and banners for consciousness of ladies’s rights and the sturdy reservation of most people and non secular organizations, particularly JI’s (Jamaat-i-Islami) ladies’s and pupil wings, who had additionally introduced a programme towards the Aurat March.”
Khawar Mumtaz, Leena Ghani and Hiba Akbar submitted a petition to the LHC as we speak, below Article 199 (jurisdiction of excessive court docket) of the Structure, with DC Haider, the Punjab authorities, Lahore’s capital metropolis police officer and Nationwide Fee for Human Rights Punjab member Nadeem Ashraf as respondents.
The LHC registrar fastened the petition for listening to on March 6 (Monday). The listening to can be presided by Justice Muzammil Akhtar Shabbir.
The petition requested that the LHC put aside the DC’s order for being “arbitrary, discriminatory and extremely vires” of varied constitutional articles, including that its operation also needs to be suspended until adjudication on the plea.
It requested that the respondents be “directed to totally facilitate the petitioners and all the ladies of Lahore to peacefully take part within the Aurat March being organised at Nasir Bagh”.
The plea argued that the DC’s order was “arbitrary and colourable train of energy and is in clear violation of the elemental rights assured within the Structure […] The impugned order is, thus, liable to be struck down”.
It added that the petitioners had met DC Haider and defined the plan for the march in a gathering throughout which she “didn’t increase any severe objection and didn’t even trace on the risk that the Aurat March wouldn’t be allowed to be held”.
“It was solely on March 3, three days later when the petitioners obtained the impugned order which put a blanket ban on holding a lawful meeting. A naked studying of the impugned order … demonstrates that the order has been handed not simply in an arbitrary and wholly unfair method but additionally that there’s a terribly prejudiced thoughts of a state functionary at work towards human rights campaigners.
Relating to the safety issues and the JI’s deliberate march, the petitioners mentioned they’d requested the DC to facilitate them by guaranteeing safety in holding the Aurat March, which might be confined inside Nasir Bagh’s boundaries for probably the most half on March 8.
“The mala fides on a part of the respondent no.1 within the impugned order is simply too apparent to flee because it clearly implies that whereas sure different teams, who in line with the Respondent no. 1 herself are maliciously motivated towards the ladies’s rights teams particularly the Aurat March, can be allowed and facilitated in holding their rallies and marches, the petitioners are completely barred from holding any such occasion.
“It is delivered to the sort consideration of this honourable court docket that the petitioners had of their letter requested for the respondent’s assist within the type of provision of safety preparations for an occasion across the theme of Worldwide Girls’s Day which is widely known throughout the globe not simply in Pakistan. This can be a completely professional request which the state establishments are below constitutional and authorized obligation to reply positively reasonably than exercising government energy in a colourable trend,” the petition argued.
Citing prior case legislation and authorized proceedings relating to the Aurat March, the petitioner mentioned the respondents “have a historical past of making hurdles within the peaceable and lawful exercise of Aurat March which takes place simply as soon as yearly”.
It added that the “arbitrary method” by which DC Haider had responded to Aurat March’s request demonstrated the “full incapacity of state functionaries” to make sure the efficient implementation of elementary rights.
“The ‘proper to assemble peacefully and with out arms’ is topic to any cheap restrictions imposed by legislation within the curiosity of public order. The restrictions imposed should, nevertheless, be cheap, and it’s for the court docket to resolve in every case whether or not the restrictions are cheap or in any other case. The blanket prohibition as within the impugned order can’t be imposed by the respondent no.1.
“The impugned order makes it clear that sure teams have the liberty to get pleasure from their rights to meeting and free speech and be handled preferentially. However, the petitioners gained’t be allowed to get pleasure from their elementary rights with none cogent causes. That is an outrightly discriminatory train of government authority by the administration of Lahore District led by the respondent no.1 which makes the impugned order liable to be struck down,” the petition defined.
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