LAHORE, Feb 4: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial on Monday disposed of petitions about deaths of cardiac patients after using spurious medicines supplied by the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) with direction to the government to strictly implement the recommendations made in judicial inquiry into the incident.
Earlier, a provincial law officer presented the inquiry report and detail of the steps being taken by the government for the implementation of the tribunal’s recommendations.
Judicial Activism Panel’s chairman and lawyer Azhar Siddique and others had filed petitions questioning the government’s failure to implement recommendations of a judicial tribunal on PIC scam.
The petitioners submitted that over two dozen patients lost their lives and hundreds were still under treatment after using PIC medicines.
They said supply of spurious drugs played havoc with lives of innocent citizens and federal and provincial authorities miserably failed to take action against those responsible for that.
They requested the court to order the government to make the inquiry report public and also ensure its implementation.
Report sought The Lahore High Court chief justice on Monday again sought a report from the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) regarding measures taken to avoid gas cylinders blasts.
The CJ expressed displeasure over non-submission of a report and directed Ogra to ensure compliance of the order by the next hearing on March 13.
Advocate Rana Mehtab had filed a public interest petition in the wake of incidents of CNG cylinder explosions in public transport vehicles. The petitioner submitted substandard cylinders were putting the lives of innocent people at risk and the government had failed to take any action in this regard.
He said dozens of people had lost their lives in the last few months due to explosions of these cylinders in public transport vehicles.
He prayed those responsible for manufacturing such substandard cylinders be punished and compensation given to the victims’ families.
