Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial of Lahore High Court will hear on September 18 a petition by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed challenging the restrictions imposed by the federal government on the Jamatud Dawa (JD), including collecting the hides of sacrificial animals.
The chief justice set the hearing for September 18 after accepting Saeed’s application seeking an early hearing of his petition, which he had filed shortly before Eidul Azha last year.
Petitioner’s counsel AK Dogar submitted that JD was a charitable institution, similar to the Edhi Welfare Foundation, that ran 142 schools for boys and girls around the country. He said these schools were funded by charitable contributions from citizens, particularly hides donated after the mass sacrifice of animals on Eid.
He said that education was a fundamental right and banning the JD from collecting hides amounted to preventing children from getting their fundamental right. He said that the federal government imposed the ban in light of a resolution passed by the United Nations Security Council while the JD was not proscribed under any local law. Dogar submitted that the ban was a clear violation of the petitioner’s constitutional rights. The ban was imposed just days before Eid, which demonstrated the government’s malicious intent.
In its reply, the Home Department said that the JD and two other groups had been listed as terrorist outfits by the UNSC, so it had not been allowed to collect hides. It said that the Interior Ministry had issued rules requiring any organisation seeking to collect hides at Eid to get a certificate of permission from the DCO and the DPO.
It stated that the JD had been barred from collecting sacrificial hides on the Interior Ministry’s instructions regarding security arrangements on the eve of Eidul Azha.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 12th, 2013.