Nawaz Sharif's release: Two SC employees suspended for violating court timings

ISLAMABAD: Two employees of Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) were suspended on Wednesday for violating the court timings to transmit former premier Nawaz Sharif’s release orders to Kot Lakphat Jail in haste on Tuesday, ARY News reported.

One named Ali of Supreme Court’s principal seat in Islamabad and another, Shehzad from Supreme Court’s Lahore registry were suspended on Wednesday evening.

The court’s work hours end at 3:30 PM whereas the two employees, who are court’s dispatchers, physically took the release orders from Islamabad to Lahore late in the night.

Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) leader and former minister Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), had accompanied both the employees in a private plane and had reached Kot Lakhpat Jail to secure the incarcerated former premier’s release.

Chaudhry has since then said he is in no way connected to the two employees in question and he ‘doesn’t know them’

Apart from the violation of court’s timings, it was also learnt that the jail manual was also violated.

According to jail procedures, the prison gates cannot be opened after sunset, but they were opened to allow in the dispatchers and the minister, and were opened again to send Sharif out.

Furthermore, it was learnt that the standard procedure of counting the prisoners at night wasn’t carried out in Kot Lakhpat Jail on Tuesday, reportedly on the orders of Home Secretary Punjab.

The delay in the prisoners’ count was apparently aimed to facilitate Nawaz Sharif’s late-night release.

Sharif was released from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail at around 1 AM on Wednesday after the Supreme Court granted him a six-week bail for medical treatment on Tuesday afternoon.