Fawad Chaudhry, a senior member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), had his two-day protective bail granted by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday. The court also prohibited the authorities from detaining him inside the federal capital until May 17.
The police attempted to detain Fawad earlier today as he was leaving the IHC, so the former information minister hurried back to court right away after being released on bail to avoid being arrested. Fawad had merely sat in his car after receiving bail from IHC when he noticed members of the Anti-Terrorist Squad approaching.
As soon as he saw the cops moving towards him the PTI leader ran out of his car and into the premises of the IHC to evade arrest. He is currently back in the court room along with his lawyers.
Interestingly, the police made a move to arrest the PTI leader despite him submitting an undertaking in the IHC of not violating the section 144 and taking part in protests.
Subsequently, IHC Justice Mian Gul Hasan Aurangzeb heard the PTI leader’s petition seeking protective bail in all cases.
The court had sought details of the case from the advocate general, who informed the court that two cases were registered against the PTI leader.
The IHC accepted Fawad’s bail petition and ordered the authorities concerned to send a copy of the verdict to the Islamabad police chief via “special messenger”.
Earlier today, the IHC had declared the arrest of PTI leaders Fawad, Shireen Mazari and Senator Falak Naz under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Ordinance (MPO) “illegal”.
The orders to release the PTI leaders were issued by Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb’s court while hearing separate pleas.
During Fawad Chaudhry’s hearing, Islamabad Advocate General Barrister Jahangir Jadoon appeared before the single-judge bench.
“I want to place some facts before the court,” he said, informing the court that the copy of the court’s order was not given to the IG office and law officers. He added that the biometric verification of the PTI leader was also not done on the petition.
At this, the judge rebuked the lawyer saying that he wasn’t the judge and it was the court’s authority to see whether the biometrics had been done.
Moving on, the AG contended that Fawad Chaudhry had not been arrested in any case. He would have been required to be presented in court if the arrest had been made under a case.
Barrister Jadoon further argued that Fawad through his conduct had to prove whether he is a peaceful citizen or not. He added that the nation incurred losses of billions due to the incidents of May 9.
At this, Justice Aurangzeb remarked that the court had not barred the authorities from taking action on those incidents.
However, Jadoon mentioned that the court while stopping Imran Khan’s arrest had mentioned the MPO separately. If they had stopped arrest in cases only, the arrest could have been made under MPO, he added.
At this, the court asked who had advised that the arrest could be made under MPO.
To the court’s query, the AG responded that no one had advised them, however, they were unaware of the court order against arrest.
The government lawyer then presented a tweet by Fawad, posted on May 10, saying that it was a video of the PTI leader inciting workers to join the protests.
The government lawyer stated that Fawad in his tweet had said that it was liable to the PTI workers to take part in protests following Imran Khan’s arrest.
