KARACHI: SHC allows claim on lost saving certificates
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 8: The Sindh High Court allowed on Thursday a petitioner's claim based on lost national savings bearer certificates worth Rs 1.8 million subject to his furnishing security for an equal amount and executing an indemnity bond for five years.
The certificates were issued, according to the savings directorate, by the Sharea Faisal savings centre "to some unidentified person" who was not bound to disclose his identity under the Special Savings Certificates Rules, 1990, framed in pursuance of the National Savings Certificates Ordinance, 1944. No particulars of the certificates or their purchaser were required to be retained by the centre.
According to petitioner, Maqsood Esbhani, he purchased certificates on April 27, 1994, but lost them in July the same year in a dacoity at his residence along with certain other belongings. A first information report lodged by him was registered by police. He annexed registration numbers of the 18 lost certificates of Rs 100,000 each, but gave no other particulars.
Contesting the claim, the savings directorate submitted, through deputy attorney-general Syed Zaki Mohammad, that the dacoity was alleged to have been committed on July 14, 1994, but the petitioner first approached the savings directorate in 1998. Since the certificates were issued to "an unidentified purchaser", the directorate or the centre was unable to identify the purchaser.
The petitioner, according to the directorate, neither knew the exact amount invested by him, nor date of purchase, nor the particulars of the centre he bought the certificates from. This made his claim dubious and untenable.
Citing Rule 14 (iii) of the 1990 savings certificate rules, regional joint director Mohammed Aslam submitted that in the event of misplacement of special savings bearer certificates, no duplicate certificate could be issued because they "are like a bearer currency and the holder is entitled to encash them on the production of original certificates without disclosing his identity".
Registration of an FIR was not a conclusive proof of possession of the certificates, particularly because they were not specifically mentioned in the report, the director said in his statement.
A division bench, comprising Justices Shabbir Ahmed and Khilji Arif Hussain, allowed the claim subject to the petitioner's furnishing security for Rs 1.8 million and executing an indemnity bond.
ORDER TO CUSTOMS: Another division bench ordered the customs authorities to release the NHA consignment of expansion joints. The rubber joints were imported by the sacked contractor for Motorway-I from Islamabad to Peshawar. They admonished the additional customs collector for appraisement for not releasing the consignment despite a court order.
Accepting NHA counsel Nisar A. Mujahid's plea, the amount of Rs 11.2 million deposited by the NHA with the customs department as auction purchaser of its own consignment was also ordered to be deposited with the court nazir to adjust the exempted duties the NHA was entitled to under the law and rules.
