A three-member bench of the Lahore High Court, comprising Justices Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry, Hasnat Ahmed and Zubdatul Husan, admonished Deputy Attorney General Naveed Anayat Malik for his failure to submit a reply giving the reasons for Saeed's detention.

Saeed and his close aide Col (retired) Nazir Ahmed have challenged their detention through a petition filed in the High Court.

Malik told the court that the Attorney General wanted to present his arguments in the case. The court then asked why the Attorney General had not appeared before the judges for this purpose.

“You people have made a mockery of the judicial system. Submit the reply in the next hearing on May 27, otherwise the court will announce its decision,” the bench remarked.

At the last hearing on May 15, the court had asked the Attorney General to submit a reply giving the grounds on which the JuD leaders had been detained. It had also asked the government whether authorities had informed Saeed and Ahmed about the reasons for their detention.

A K Dogar, the counsel for Saeed and Nazir, completed his arguments at the last hearing. He said the government had no legal grounds to detain his clients.

Dogar also said that a judicial review board of the Lahore High Court had freed two other leaders of the JuD ¿ Amir Hamza and Mufti Abdur Rehman ¿ while extending the detention of Saeed and Nazir by two months even though all of them had been placed under house arrest on the same grounds.

Saeed and Nazir were placed under house arrest on December 12 last year under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance, which allows a person to be held for up to 90 days.