RAWALPINDI: October 14, 2022: The Lahore High Court (LHC), Rawalpindi bench on Friday cancelled the orders issued by the judicial magistrate for arrest of federal Interior minister , Rana Sanaullah.
The court also ordered Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) to present the record of the case to the court by October 17, 2022. Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan passed the orders to cancel arrest warrants of Rana Sanaullah while hearing a petition field by the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) lawyers to quash orders of the judicial magistrate for arrest of the federal Interior minister.
The judicial magistrate Rawalpindi had issued arrest warrants of Rana Sanaullah in a land grabbing case and ordered the police to arrest the federal Interior minister and present him before the court .
ACE had come twice to Islamabad to arrest the federal Interior minister, but Islamabad police refused to receive the notices issued by the judicial magistrate. The Punjab police and Islamabad police had come face to face for days in the case on the issue of arrest of Rana Sanaullah.
According to Masadiq Abbasi, chief of ACE , Rana Sanaullah , had inaugurated a housing society in Chakwal district on motorway back in 2017 and accepted two plots measuring 10 kanals as bribe. Rana Sanaullah was then the minister for Law in the Punjab.
Rana Sanaullah rejected the allegations and called the move of ACE Punjab as a politically motivated to create rift between the federal and provincial government .
Rana Sanaullah had accused ACE Punjab of tempering the record of the case on the direction of top offices of the Punjab government. The case of arrest of Rana Sanaullah had come so important for the Punjab government that its newly appointed advior on Interior, Umar Sarfraz Cheema had issued the first order after taking over the charge of his office to arrest Rana Sanaullah.
The Punjab government wanted to arrest Rana Sanaullah to settle score against arrest of Pakistan Teheek e Insaf (PTI) leaders in prohibited foreign funding case.
With striking down the judicial magistrate orders by LHC, the Punjab government’s plan of a tit for tat by arresting Rana Sanaullah may not go through .
The court orders to ACE Punjab to present the record of the casea by October 17, 2022 may open a new Pandora box if the record of the case is tempered with by Mr Musadaiq Abbasi who seems more loyal to Imran Khan and chief minister, Chaudhary Pervez Elahi than the state for arrest of Rana Sanaullah in what seems a politically motivated case.
