LAHORE - A civil miscellaneous (CM) application has been filed in the Lahore High Court against 6 per cent additional surcharge in the electricity bills in the name of fuel adjustment, which is payable from the month of April, 2010. Imtiaz Raseed Qureshi, media advisor Save Judiciary Committee (SJC), filed the CM application into his main petition pending before the LHC against loadshedding and electricity crisis which he said was result of bad performance of the federal minister for water and power and failure of the policies of the federal government at large. The new application has been fixed for hearing today (Friday) in the court of Justice Umar Ata Bandial. In his CM application the petitioner submitted the 6 per cent additional tax, (the surcharge) is unconstitutional as it will prove an additional burden on the masses who are already in a miserable condition due to the prevailing price-hike and inflated utility bills. The petitioner stated the government showed haste in collecting the unlawful tax from the masses as it had announced to take surcharge from April but added it in the bills of February payable in April. JAP terms trial of Dr Aafia fabricated Judicial Activism Panel, a human right body, has said that the government of Pakistan has failed to build pressure on America government for a free and fair trial of Dr Aafia Siddiqui. Judicial Activism Panel (JAP) demanded that for a free and fair trial of the case, Dr Aafia should be referred to any other country of the World in the interest of justice, equity and fair play. Led by JAP chairman Azhar Siddique a large number of civil society and human rights activists held a detailed meeting with Dr Fauzia Siddiqui, sister of Dr Aafia here at a local hotel to discuss the matter. The meeting aimed at chalking out a strategy about future plan of action before 8th of May 2010, when the Jury of American Courts is going to declare its verdict on conviction of Dr Aafia Siddiqui. The participants of the meeting unanimously condemned the Pakistani governments failure to support Dr Aafia or build a pressure on the US government over the issue of Dr Aafia. The meeting requested the United Nations and International Court of Justice to take up the matter in its own hand and hold a judicial inquiry into the incident. The meeting observed that trial of Dr Aafia Siddiqui deviated the principles laid down in Magna Carta, Charter of United Nations, international human rights law, human rights and international committee of the Red Cross humanitarian rights and other such treaties, thus the trial of Dr Aafia Siddiqui is pre-determined, biased and based on ill will, malice and conjectures. LHC junior staff promoted The Lahore High Court Thursday granted the rank of senior clerks to 74 junior employees of the Lahore High Court who were hitherto working in their selection grade at various LHC benches includes Principal Seat, Rawalpindi and Multan Bench. On the recommendations of a committee the LHC registrar promoted the said official from their selection grade BD-7 to BS-9 giving them rank of senior clerks. It is pertinent to mention here that some of the court employees were working in the grade BS-7 since 1996. Now the officials will get the new BS-9 from back dates applicable from the year 1996 to 2000, depending on individual case of each employee on the basis of their service record and performance. The senior clerks have been posted as assistant at various benches of the Lahore High Court including the principal seat at Lahore. The cases of Raees-uz Zaman, Muhammad Yayha, Ameer Ali, Arif Hussain, Abdul Razzaq Nasir, and Saleem Raza have been deferred on account of departmental inquiry pending against them and the post have been kept reserved for them. The case of Ashraf Ali Shah Bokhari, Muhammad Saeed and Miraj Din, senior clerks, have been ignored on account of their dismissal or patchy service record.