Lahore High Court orders Noreen Niazi meeting with her daughters on Tuesday and summons Lahore DC in person for 4 November
The Lahore High Court on Monday directed jail authorities to arrange a one-hour meeting between detained PTI founder Imran Khan’s sister Noreen Niazi and her two daughters on Tuesday at 10am, and summoned the Lahore deputy commissioner in person on 4 November to explain the extensions in the detention orders.
The Lahore High Court has moved the case of detained Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan’s sisters from reports to concrete directions, ordering a family meeting for one of the detained women and summoning the district administration to explain why their detention was extended. Justice Abher Gul Khan issued the orders on Monday while hearing petitions that challenge the extension of the detention orders against Aleema Khan, Dr Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi.
The most immediate direction concerns Noreen Niazi. The court directed jail authorities to facilitate a meeting between Noreen and her two daughters in jail on Tuesday at 10am, for one hour. The petitioners’ counsel was directed to submit a formal application to the Lahore deputy commissioner, who is to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting on the basis of that application. The order answers one of the central complaints in the petitions: that the detained women have not been allowed to meet their families or consult their lawyers.
The second direction puts the district administration itself before the court. Justice Khan summoned the Lahore deputy commissioner to appear in person on 4 November to explain the extensions in the detention orders of Noreen and Uzma Khan. The summons follows the deputy commissioner’s non-appearance and the absence, in the court’s view, of an explanatory position on why the detention period was extended. A compliance report on the family meetings is also expected around the same hearing.
The orders came after the Punjab Home Department submitted its report, as the court had directed earlier on Monday with a 2pm deadline. The provincial law officer told the court that Noreen had been taken to hospital for treatment after her condition deteriorated in Kot Lakhpat Jail, and had subsequently been shifted back to jail on doctors’ advice. He added that her daughter Hajra Niazi had been allowed to meet her at the hospital on 29 October, while she was receiving treatment.
That hospital episode is central to the petitions. Noreen’s counsel has told the court that she is seriously ill and was admitted to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Lahore after her condition worsened in prison, on the recommendation of the jail’s doctors. The family’s legal team has pressed for access to her medical records and for regular family meetings, and the court had earlier sought a separate report from the jail authorities on her health alongside the Home Department’s report on the detention extensions.
The background to the case goes back to September. The three sisters were detained under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960, as the PTI prepared for a planned protest march towards Islamabad. Aleema Khan was taken into custody on 20 September, while Uzma and Noreen were detained the following day. Their initial detention orders were for 30 days, and the Punjab government later extended them for a further 30 days through a notification issued by the deputy commissioner on 7 October.
The petitioners, Noreen’s daughter Sakeena and Aleema’s son Shahrez Khan, argue that the extension was unlawful. Their counsel, Rana Mudassar Umar, told the court on Monday that the three women had spent 44 days behind bars despite having committed no offence, and he has previously argued that the fresh detention orders were virtual replicas of the earlier ones, with only the dates changed. That argument — that the extension was a formality rather than a fresh assessment — is the legal heart of the challenge, and it is still to be decided.
Monday’s hearing also separated the three sisters’ cases for the next steps. While the court dealt with Noreen’s meeting and the deputy commissioner’s appearance over Noreen’s and Uzma’s extensions, it adjourned until next week the hearing of the petition challenging Aleema Khan’s fresh detention. The court had earlier declined to suspend the detention notifications immediately, preferring to seek reports from the respondents first, and Monday’s orders follow that cautious sequence: reports first, then directions, with the legality of the extensions still open.
What happens next is now set out in dates rather than in general terms. On Tuesday morning, the question is practical: whether the one-hour meeting at 10am actually takes place, and whether it is arranged smoothly through the deputy commissioner’s office. On 4 November, the question becomes legal and administrative: whether the deputy commissioner’s explanation for the extensions satisfies the court, and whether the compliance report on the meetings is filed. The following week, attention returns to Aleema Khan’s petition.
For the families, the two directions together change the shape of the case. A meeting that was previously a request is now a court-ordered appointment with a time attached, and an extension that was previously a notification on paper must now be explained in person by the official who issued it. Whether those steps lead to any change in the detentions themselves will depend on what the court hears on 4 November and in the adjourned hearing the week after.
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