20 January 2005	Thursday	09 Zilhaj 1425

KARACHI, Jan 19: The hearing of a writ petition challenging the arrest and confinement of 'doctor brothers' under the preventive detention provisions of the Anti-Terrorist Act was on Wednesday adjourned to Jan 25.

Resuming his arguments, Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan submitted that the petition was not maintainable as the detainees had failed to avail of the alternative remedies provided by the constitution and the ATA.

They did not question the notification of their names as associates of three banned outfits under the ATA. Nor did they make a representation against their detention under the constitution. They were thus barred from invoking the high court's writ jurisdiction.

Referring to the constitutional safeguards contained in Article 10 (1) and (2), the AG said they did not apply to people held under any law providing for preventive detention.

As for Article 10(5), a detainee has to be communicated the grounds on the basis of which his detention order has been passed. The authority passing the order was not, however, obliged to disclose 'the facts' if their disclosure was against the public interest.

The intimation of grounds was sufficient to enable the detainee to make a representation against his detention, he maintained. A Sindh High Court division bench comprising Justices Ataur Rahman and Zia Pervez adjourned the hearing for further arguments by the AG.

The petition has been moved by Dr Fauzia Akmal and Dr Farzana Naz to assail the detention of their husbands, Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed, through Advocate M. Ilyas Khan.

The petitioners say that the detention order was mala fide and was aimed at pre-empting the doctors' release on bail as ordered by the high court on Dec 2, 2004.

APPELLANT SHIFTED: Another division bench comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and M. Nujibullah Siddiqui, ordered transfer of Muhammad Ashraf, a Harkatul Muahideen Al-Alami activist convicted by an anti-terrorism court in the US consulate-general attack case, from the Sukkur jail to the Central Prison, Karachi.

He submitted through Advocate Khwaja Naveed Ahmed that his appeal against his conviction and 10-year sentence was pending in the high court. He had been transferred from Karachi to Sukkur without SHC permission. His parents and other family members were facing difficulty in meeting him.

The bench granted bail to a convict claimed by his counsel to have served out his jail term if allowed the benefit of remissions. Ashiq Ali was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for misappropriating Rs1.8 million of the PNSC employees provident fund. He was admitted to bail in the sum of Rs 200,000.