KARACHI, April 24: The Sindh High Court asked an accountability court on Thursday to decide the claim of a petitioner that a convict’s property ordered to be confiscated by it actually belonged to her.

Ms Bashiran, sister of convicted former deputy director of FIA Chaudhry Sharif, submitted through Advocate K.M. Nadeem that two plots and two bungalows in the DHA, Karachi, actually belonged to her. She was a housewife and permanently resident in Britain and her property was nominally held by her brother, Chaudhry Sharif. However, it had been ordered to be confiscated as part of the punishment handed down to him by an accountability court.

Advocate Nadeem submitted before a division bench hearing the petition that according to a Supreme Court judgment, a ‘benamidar’ could not be deprived of his/her property without being issued a notice and accorded an opportunity of hearing and of adducing evidence.

The bench, which consisted of Justices Mohammad Roshan Essani and Khilji Arif Hussain, disposed of Ms Bashiran’s petition in terms of the SC verdict and directed the accountability court to settle her claim.