LAHORE: The Lahore High Court chief justice has named Justice Ali Bagar Najafi for holding a judicial inquiry into the killings during police and city administration action against alleged encroachments outside the Model Town residence of Dr Tahirul Qadri.

The Punjab government had requested the LHC chief justice to appoint a judge for holding a judicial inquiry.

Chief Justice Khwaja Imtiaz Ahmad constituted one-man tribunal under Section 3 of the Punjab Tribunals of Inquiry Ordinance, 1969, for the probe and to ascertain the facts and circumstance of the incident.

LEGAL STATUS: The findings of judicial inquiries are just recommendations givento the government, and action, if any in their light, is its own exclusive prerogative.

This was stated by some senior government officials who were contacted to know the legal status of such inquiries.

The officials who explained the locus standi of the judicial inquiries on the condition of anonymity, said they normally divert the attention of public from the actual incident. And their recommendations are made after people lose interest in the event. They help fizzle out the public pressure.

One senior prosecutor says findings of the judicial inquiries are not findings of police investigations. Such inquiries are ordered in cases in which government or its officials are accused of doing something wrong. But the findings are again given to the government or its officials for action.

He however said the findings can be helpful in making a case against the accused only if the government wants it. He said it has always been with the government to make public the reports of the judicial inquiries, or not. Findings are generally made public if they do not hurt anyone in the mainstream.

Action was taken against doctors and manufacturers and distributors of medicines which killed patients of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology in the light of a judicial inquiry. But big fish involved in a scandal related to a faulty computer programme that spoiled examination results of the Lahore Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education were spared despite a judicial inquiry.

Some administrative officers, having vast experience of controlling agitation or mob, did not agree with the methods used in Model Town.

They said appointment of a judge to hold an inquiry was necessary to ensure impartiality.

Holding inquiry by administration accused of a wrongdoing was not legally correct.

But, they admitted, that action on the recommendation of a judicial inquiry was the prerogative of administration. `The basic step is action which is the choice of the government,` an official said.