KARACHI, Feb 19: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday issued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of an alleged contemner and his production in the court. It asked a state counsel to ensure execution of the warrants.
The accused, Lal Bux Bhatti, was charged with contempt by the SHC registrar in 1992 when he published a tract maligning the members of the superior judiciary and alleging that they were not dispensing justice. He also posted the contemptuous material to the Supreme Court and Sindh High Court judges individually. The SHC registrar took cognizance of the matter and summoned the contemner. He appeared and insisted on the veracity of what he had written and was, therefore, charged with contempt.
Summons were issued a number of times but the accused never faced the court after his first appearance. An SHC division bench comprising Justices Shabbir Ahmed and Azizullah M. Memon issued non-bailable warrants for his arrest on Wednesday and state counsel Jawed Akhtar to ensure that he was produced before the court for trial on the next date of hearing to be fixed by the office.
Another division bench comprising Justices Mohammad Roshan Essani and Anwar Zaheer Jamali, meanwhile, issued notices to the office-bearers of a voluntary organization and the registrar of joint stock companies in a petition alleging that the organization was exploiting religion to make commercial gains.
Filed by Haji Gul Ahmed through Advocate Akhtar Jamal, the petition alleged that the office-bearers of the organization had misappropriated millions of rupees they received from the public as donations and that the amenity plot allotted to the organization had also been put to commercial use.
The petitioner requested the court to depute its nazir to seal off the organization’s office, seize its record, freeze its bank account and restore its assets and building to the purposes they were initially intended to serve.
retrial ordered: The Sindh High Court remanded the case against a former assistant drug controller, Abdul Sami Mangrio, to the Trial Accountability Court and granted him bail in the sum of Rs20 million.
Mangrio and three other assistant drug controllers were tried for issuing fake certificates of consumption of the raw material imported by a pharmaceutical company for manufacturing medicines. The material was exempted from sales tax and customs duty but according to the National Accountability Bureau, it was sold on the black market without being used in production of finished goods. The officials were accused of accepting illegal gratification for the issuance of the certificates, thereby causing a huge loss to the public exchequer.
They were convicted by an accountability court and sentenced to a total of 20 years jail and a fine of Rs5 million each. The owner of the company, meanwhile, bargained with the NAB for immunity by promising a staggered payment of Rs60 million.
Appearing for appellant Mangrio, Barrister Azizullah Shaikh and Advocate Shaista Shamim argued that one of the prosecution witnesses was dropped while another deposed against the prosecution but was not declared hostile. The ‘bin cards’ that showed daily use of the various raw materials were not accepted only because they found no mention in ‘entry registers’. The registers were not, however, exhibited as evidence. The owner of the company was not impleaded either as a co-accused or as an approver or even called as a witness. According to a suit filed by the owner in the high court, he paid about Rs30 million under duress to ‘protect his and his family’s honour’ and prayed for a court order for its refund. The SHC appellate bench, comprising Justices Wahid Bux Brohi and Moosa K. Leghari, directed that the case be remanded for retrial wherein the counsel of the accused would be free to call the allegedly delinquent company’s owner as a witness. The bench also accepted his bail plea as no accountability court was functional currently and he has already been in prison for two years.
