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KARACHI, July 9: Justice Maqbool Baqar of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday ordered sifting of a betel-nut consignment detained by the customs in the presence of the court’s official assignee.
The order came on a writ petition moved by an importer. The customs authorities sent samples from the consignment to chemical laboratories, which found it partially infested.
According to the labs, if the infested quantity was below 10 per cent, the commodity could be used after proper sifting. However, if the level of infestation was above 10 per cent, the betel-nuts were totally unfit for human consumption.
The judge ordered that “careful sifting” should be done in the presence of the official assignee and the representatives of the HEJ Research Institute and PCSIR laboratories, the customs and food departments and the petitioner importer.
Meanwhile, the SHC Nazir was asked by a division bench to ascertain the whereabouts of an alleged detainee. The bench, which consisted of Justices S. Ahmed Sarwana and Zia Perwez, ordered that the nazir would act as a local commissioner and visit the CID Centre, the Napier police station and adjacent places to find out whether the detainee was confined there. He was asked to produce the detainee on July 10. A petitioner had alleged that her elder brother was being held in illegal confinement at the behest of a police sub-inspector.
BAIL GRANTED: A referee judge of the Sindh High Court has favoured the grant of bail to former federal secretary Javed Burki and co-accused Muzammil Niazi, who are facing trial before an accountability court.
Their bail applications were dismissed by the trial court, and an SHC division bench comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Rehmat Hussain Jaferi returned a split verdict. Justice Osmany accepted the bail pleas while Justice Jaferi rejected them with a direction to the trial court to conclude the proceedings within three months. The matter was referred to Justice Shabbir Ahmed, who rendered a 50-page opinion on Wednesday after an extensive hearing.
According to the opinion, Justice Ahmed agreed with Justice Osmany, the senior member of the division bench, and directed the SHC office that the case be placed before the same bench for announcement of the order of the court in terms of majority view or a special bench be constituted for the purpose. The office was asked to obtain an appropriate order from the chief justice in this regard.
Burki and Niazi are standing trial for misappropriating, according to the National Accountability Bureau, about Rs 1.76 billion in a truck manufacturing deal with the Pakistan Army as chairman of the Pakistan Automobile Corporation and its subsidiary, respectively.
The referee judge observed that the contrary conclusions arrived at by the members of the division bench ‘have made the existence of reasonable grounds to connect the applicants with the crime doubtful’ and entitled them to bail.
About the power of the referee or third judge, Justice Ahmed said it was very limited. As a referee judge, he added, his jurisdiction was limited to resolving the difference of opinion between the judges of the division bench, who continued to retain jurisdiction over the matter. The fact that the members of the bench had recorded separate orders and had not expressly stated the point or points of difference did not mean that the whole case was before him, he observed.
Without dilating on the question of maintainability of the bail pleas in view of the bar contained in Section 9 (b) of the NAB Ordinance, Justice Ahmed referred to Justice Osmany’s view that after the Supreme Court judgment in Khan Asfandyar Wali’s case, the matter was only of academic importance.
The SC had declared that bail could always be granted under the constitutional jurisdiction of superior courts.
