February 12, 2002	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 28, 1422

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LAHORE, Feb 11: The Punjab health secretary and the Lahore police chief were convicted of contempt and sentenced to varying jail terms and fines by the Lahore High Court on Monday.

‘Showing magnanimity,’ however, the trial judge suspended the punishment for 10 days to enable Secretary Hasan Waseem Afzal and SSP Aftab Ahmad Cheema to challenge their conviction in appeal subject to their furnishing bail bonds in the sum of Rs10,000 with one surety each in the like amount.

Justice Khwaja Mohammad Sharif, who initiated the contempt proceedings suo motu following press reports and a letter addressed to the LHC chief justice by PMA President Dr Aftab Ahmad, also deplored, in his 22-page judgment and order, the conduct of Advocate-General Maqbool Elahi Malik, who “opted to become defence counsel for the accused instead of coming to the help of administration of justice.”

Afzal was awarded three months’ simple imprisonment and Rs5000 in fine (or another month in jail) for ‘the gravest contempt,’ committed by him by frustrating court orders against his younger brother, deputy medico-legal surgeon Nadeem Afzal Ashrafi, and his co-convict, Dr Mohammad Afzal, in a case of contempt and issuance/signing of a false certificate to bail out police torturers of an illegally detained boy.

SSP Cheema is to undergo 15 days simple imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs1000 or serve another seven days for “becoming a tool in the hands the secretary and not arresting the two convicts despite warrants issued by the LHC as the trial court.” He put a spanner in the wheels of justice and later tried to find scapegoats from among his subordinates to justify his misconduct.

Both the officers have 10 days to move an intra-court appeal. Arrest, suspension and other departmental actions follow once the judgment attains finality.

Rejecting the apologies tendered by the accused at the fag-end of the proceedings, that too on a cue from the court, the judgment pointed out that an apology has to be an expression of a “sincere and genuine remorse, and not a mere formality. It must be tendered at the earliest possible opportunity and must also be unconditional. The accused in the present case tried to justify their conduct and apologized for ‘any lapse’ or ‘any fault’ that might have occurred.”

Justice Sharif also wondered why no action had been taken against Dr Zainab Parveen of the Fatima Jinnah Medical College (FJMC), who swore a belated affidavit alleging coercion by her senior colleagues to make her sign a false report against the two convicts. The affidavit, which was not produced at any stage of judicial proceedings, was submitted to the health department to facilitate a fresh inquiry after the judgment against the convicts had become final. “Her conduct is definitely culpable and calls for severe punishment at the department level,” the judge said.

CASE AGAINST DOCTORS: The contempt case against Dr Nadeem Afzal Ashrafi and medico-legal officer Dr Mohammad Afzal commenced when they denied, in their report to the court, tell-tale signs of police torture on the body of an unlawfully confined boy recovered from the Sambrial police station, district Sialkot, by a bailiff in Dec 2000.

Justice Sharif, who heard the habeas corpus petition, got the boy examined by four Mayo Hospital doctors. Their report belied the medico-legal report and the court summoned the then provincial health secretary to help resolve the controversy.

The health secretary constituted another board of four senior doctors, who concurred in the Mayo report. Doctors Ashrafi and Afzal were tried for contempt, forging false evidence and issuing a false certificate. They were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and Rs20,000 in fine each. On an appeal, the Supreme Court partially upheld the conviction and reduced the quantum of punishment to one year’s jail each. The SC judgment was announced on May 14, 2001, and a review against it was dismissed soon afterward.

The convicts were neither arrested nor suspended. Instead, Hassan Waseem Afzal, brother of Dr Nadeem Afzal Ashrafi, who had taken over as the provincial health secretary in the meanwhile, tried to have a fresh inquiry instituted against the convicts on the basis of an affidavit submitted by Dr Zainab Parveen, a member of the third medical board. The affidavit was neither produced before the trial court (the LHC) nor before the Supreme Court to have its veracity judicially examined. “It was a cunning attempt to frustrate superior court orders, Justice Sharif said in his judgment on Monday.

He observed that everybody is equal before law and the judiciary must carry public confidence in order to discharge its functions.