December 25, 2002	Wednesday	Shawwal 20, 1423

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MULTAN, Dec 24: The Punjab Health Department has finally withdrawn an inquiry initiated against the three members of a special medical board on whose findings the Lahore High Court had penalized two officials of the medico-legal surgeon’s office, including the health secretary’s brother.

According to a letter issued by Health Secretary Hasan Waseem Afzal on Dec 16, “the disciplinary proceedings initiated against Dr Shahid Hanif, associate professor of forensic medicines, Allama Iqbal Medical College, and Dr Pervaiz Rana, associate professor of forensic medicines, King Edward Medical College, are hereby withdrawn on the orders of the governor.”

The medical board was constituted on the orders of the LHC in December, 2000, when a contradiction was found between the reports of the medico-legal surgeon and a medical board during the trial of a habeas corpus petition filed by Mushtaq Husain for the recovery of his nephew, Nadeem Iqbal, from illegal detention of the Sambrial police.

Dr Nadeem Afzal Ashrafi and Dr Muhammad Afzal of the medico-legal surgeon office, in their report, said there was no torture mark on the body of Nadeem Iqbal, but the medical board pointed out five injuries of a blunt weapon.

The board comprising Dr Shahid Hanif, Dr Pervaiz Rana, Dr M. Athar, the then chief chemical examiner, and Dr Zaineb Parveen, assistant professor of forensic medicines at the Fatima Jinnah Medical College, confirmed the findings of the medical board.

At this, Justice Khwaja Muhammad Sharif of the LHC, in a summary trial, convicted the two doctors of the medico-legal surgeon of misleading the court and awarded each five-year imprisonment. The convicts filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, but the apex court upheld their conviction though quantum of their sentence was reduced to one year.

The two convicted doctors were on bail after the suspension of the LHC decision, but none of them was arrested to undergo his sentence when the apex court maintained their conviction.

In the meanwhile, Dr Ashrafi’s brother Hasan Waseem Afzal was posted as health secretary on June 14, 2001.

An affidavit by Dr Zaineb dated Jan 8, 2001, suddenly surfaced on June 27 in which she claimed that she signed the special medical board report under coercion of other members of the board. At this, the Health Department constituted a five-member committee for a preliminary probe against the three other members of the board with Dr Arshad Awan, the then surgeon medico-legal, as its chairman. Dr Awan had appeared before the LHC as defence witness in the case in which Dr Ashrafi and Dr Afzal were convicted.

Besides, the department prepared a summary titled “insult, humiliation and punishment of two members of medical profession” for the governor to get his approval to take a disciplinary action against the three board members on the basis of the affidavit submitted by Dr Zaineb.

That were the last days of the then governor, Mohammad Safdar, in the office and he rather approved the summary for initiation of an inquiry against the three board members for disciplinary action without bothering to know that the Health Department proceedings in the matter were supra judicial after the decision of the apex court.

The then provincial secretary, labour and manpower, Zahoorul Haq Shaikh, was appointed inquiry officer after issuance of a show-cause notice to Dr Shahid and Dr Pervaiz under the Removal from Service Ordinance, 2000, while Dr M Athar had been retired by that time. On the other hand, the convicts were not even moving free, but they we were also drawing salaries from the exchequer.

The matter was reported in the press early this year, and Justice Sharif took a suo motu notice against Hasan Waseem Afzal and the then Lahore police chief, Aftab Cheema. During day-to-day trial, both Dr Ashrafi and Dr Afzal were arrested to undergo their sentence announced by the apex court, while Justice Sharif awarded three-month imprisonment to the health secretary and one-month to the SP for contempt of court. It is another matter that Dr Ashrafi spent his jail term in the cozy environment of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology.

A division bench of the LHC, however, later on suspended the sentence awarded to the secretary and the SSP.

In his judgment in the contempt case, Justice Sharif expressed his surprise that no disciplinary action under the Removal from Services Ordinance had been initiated whatsoever against Dr Zaineb as her conduct once again put the whole machinery of the government into motion. He also observed that how the second medical board members were being penalized when they just affirmed the report of the first medical board.

But instead of taking any action against Dr Zaineb, the Health Department has recently inducted her into the newly-constituted medico-legal board for the matters of medical jurisprudence reported from the provincial capital under the so-called revamping of the medico-legal system. While in other areas of the province, only the heads of forensic departments of the teaching institutes concerned are given representation on the boards.