Manan Mandokhail, Syed Muhammad Qaseem:
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QUETTA: Balochistan High Court (BHC) on Tuesday barred police from registering further first information reports (FIRs) against the Pakistan Tehrik e Insaf (PTI) leader and former federal minister, Azam Swati. A division bench of the BHC comprising Mr. Justice Muhammad Kamran Khan Mullakhail and Mr. Justice Muhammad Amir Rana passed this order on a constitutional petition filed by the son of Azam Swati.
Senior lawyers Naseebullah Tareen Advocate, Syed Iqbal Shah, and others appeared before the court on behalf of Mr. Swati.
The respondents are directed not to lodge any FIR in respect of the allegation leveled in the appended FIRs already lodged at Kuchlak, Zhob, Khuzdar, Pasni, and other parts of the province.
“No similar FIRs on similar allegations can be registered by the police”, the bench ordered.
This order on the part of BHC has come after the registration of five FIRs against the central PTI leader and former senator Azam Swati. Police in Balochistan registered five FIRs against the former federal minister on various applications by different people for using derogatory and foul language against state institutions.
Police have already obtained five days’ remand for Mr. Swati in the aforesaid cases. Swati has been kept in Quetta. The bench also directed the Balochistan police chief to submit a report in this regard.
Swati’s son had also filed another petition seeking the quashing of FIRs against his father. In this petition, we pleaded that second FIR can not be registered against Mr. Swati in one incident because FIRs have already been lodged against him in Islamabad, Naseebullah Tareen, the counsel for the former federal minister said.
The son of the former minister also requested the court not to move his father to Khuzdar, Gwadar, Zhob, and other parts of Balochistan in the same FIRs.