March 13: A Pakistani high court today set aside the detention order of Mumbai terror attack mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, pointing out that the government had not submitted any evidence against him.

'The respondents have avoided to produce any material before this court. Severally, this court asked the respondents to produce said material but advocate-general, Islamabad, as well as additional attorney-general with lame excuses submitted that they intend to produce the said record before the review board,' Judge Noor-ul-Haq Qureshi said in his order, which paves the way for Lakhvi's immediate release and lays the responsibility for this at the Nawaz Sharif government's door.

India lodged a strong protest against the order, with the foreign office summoning the Pakistan high commissioner and the home ministry hitting out at Islamabad.

'Pakistan did not present the evidence before the court,' Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said in New Delhi, echoing the high court.

With the judge spelling out his reason for releasing Lakhvi, it will be difficult for the Pakistani government to cite the independence of the judiciary to distance itself from today's development.

The detention order under the Maintenance of Public Order law was issued against Lakhvi after an anti-terrorist court's decision to grant him bail in December triggered outrage in India and embarrassed Pakistan, which had vowed to eliminate all terror groups after a Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar killed 132 children.

But Islamabad High Court suspended the detention, following which the government went to the Supreme Court. The top court set aside the high court order and asked it to hear both parties - Lakhvi and the federal government - with sufficient time.

In its ruling, the high court today said: 'This fresh detention order has been passed without assigning any reason.'

The government has not substantiated the allegations it had made with any material, despite being required to do so by the court, nor had it appended such evidence in the reply it submitted, the judge noted.

'There is no other material on the basis of which it could be ascertained that detention of the petitioner is justified,' he said.