LAHORE  -   A Lahore High Court (LHC) divi­sion bench Monday suspended a single bench order that stopped authorities concerned from ar­resting former chief minister Pun­jab Chaudhry Parvez Elahi in any undisclosed case.

The bench, headed by Justice Baqar Ali Naja­fi, heard the appeal filed by the Punjab govern­ment against single bench orders. The bench also issued notices to the respondents on the appeal and sought a reply. Earlier, Advocate General Pun­jab Khalid Ishaq argued before the bench that dif­ferent institutions were carrying out investiga­tions against Chaudhry Parvez Elahi on charges of corruption in projects, money laundering and others. He submitted that an LHC single bench stopped the institutions from taking any action against the former chief min­ister and it badly affected the process of investigations. He requested the bench to set aside the single bench order and suspend it till the final decision of the appeal.

At this, the bench admit­ted the appeal for regular hearing and suspended the single bench order while is­suing notices to the respon­dents. On July 14, an LHC sin­gle bench had stopped the authorities concerned from arresting Chaudhry Parvez Elahi in undisclosed cases. The court was hearing a pe­tition filed by Parvez Elahi seeking details of the cases against him.

Earlier, the Lahore depu­ty commissioner (DC) issued a 30-day detention order for PTI President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO). The order stat­ed that Elahi would be held at Lahore’s Camp Jail, where he has been incarcerated since last month. 

Meanwhile, the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Mon­day disposed of a petition filed by former chief minister Punjab Chaudhry Parvez Ela­hi against his detention.

Justice Ali Baqar Naja­fi heard the petition filed by the former chief minister challenging his one-month detention. During the pro­ceedings, a provincial law of­ficer submitted that the pe­tition was not maintainable as the petitioner had not availed the available reme­dy first before approaching the high court. He submitted that the petitioner should have approached the deputy commissioner first.

The court also agreed with the stance of the law officer and directed Parvez Elahi’s counsel to move an applica­tion to the deputy commis­sioner against detention. At this, the petitioner’s counsel did not press the petition and sought permission to with­draw it. Subsequently, the court disposed of the petition as withdrawn. It is pertinent to mention here that depu­ty commissioner Lahore had issued detention orders of Chaudhry Parvez Elahi for one-month on recommenda­tions of the Punjab police, un­der Section 3 of Maintenance of Public Order.