Grown up young lady who was not found to be in any kind of confinement or under any restraint had been locked up and incarcerated within the confines of a Dar-ul-Aman for an indefinite period!

The August Supreme Court of Pakistan has held in the case ofALI MUHAMMAD Vs. The STATE and others(2013 S C M R 1484)as under 

"It is quite ironical and shocking that habeas corpus proceedings before the Lahore High Court, Lahore, which were meant to secure release of a person from an illegal or improper custody or confinement, had been utilized in the present case for depriving a free person of her liberty and the net result achieved was that a grown up young lady who was not found to be in any kind of confinement or under any restraint had been locked up and incarcerated within the confines of a Dar-ul-Aman for an indefinite period! Such an approach adopted and the result achieved by the learned Judge-in-Chamber of the Lahore High Court, Lahore surely ran contrary to the very essence and purpose of a writ or petition for habeas corpus which is securing freedom and not curtailing liberty. We are sure that the learned Judge-in-Chamber of the Lahore High Court, Lahore would have done better if he had sought guidance in this regard from various judgments handed down by this Court on the subject from time to time. In these indefensible circumstances, after having been punished only for an imagined or apprehended sin, the detenue has appeared to us to be, in the words of Shakespeare's King Lear, a woman "more sinned against than sinning". Apart from that the Constitution of Pakistan mandates that the judgments of this Court are binding on all other courts in the country but while passing the impugned order the learned Judge-in-Chamber had failed to follow the above mentioned, and many other, judgments rendered by this Court on the subject. It may be true that during the pendency of a petition filed in the nature of habeas corpus a court can pass a rule nisi regarding interim custody of the alleged detenue but it is unimaginable and unthinkable that after final disposition of such petition the alleged detenue, who was otherwise a free person, may be put to physical restraint or confinement for an indefinite period and that too not on the basis of any concrete fact or allegation but merely on the basis of an imagined possibility of commission of a sin or a crime.”

 Part of Judgment 

IN THE LAHORE HIGH COURT RAWALPINDI BENCH, RAWALPINDI.

Writ Petition-Criminal proceedings-Detention/habeas
1421-20

2020 LHC 1825