KARACHI, Dec 16: The Sindh High Court adjourned the hearing of a petition against the detention of 'doctor brothers' to December 21 to enable the respondents to file their comments on it.

The petition, moved by the wives of Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed through Advocates M. Ilyas Khan and Shaukat Hayat, maintains that the detainees were confined to bypass a high court order for their on bail in a terrorism case.

They had been held under Section 11-EEE of the Anti-Terrorist Act, which provided for preventive detention. However, they could not have been subjected to preventive detention without being specified in the preceding Section 11-EE of the ATA.

The doctors are facing trial for harbouring and for providing financial and medical assistance to the Jundullah activists. In the preventive detention order, they have been alleged to have links with Al Qaeda and another banned outfit.

As the petition came up for hearing before a divisioon bench, comprising Justices Anwar Zaheed Jamali and S. Ali Aslam Jafri, Additional Advocate-General M. Ahmed Pirzada sought time for filing comments and the bench adjourned the proceedings to Dec 21. The provincial home secretary, the inspector general of prisons and the DIG (operations) had been impleaded as respondents.