KARACHI, Dec 14: The Sindh High Court asked a magisterial court on Wednesday to conclude trial of an Air India official for espionage within a month, failing which he should be released on bail in the sum of Rs 100,000. Sikandar Inam Raja, the airline’s manager in Karachi, is accused of passing on maps of sensitive locations to the Indian intelligence agency Raw. He was arrested and booked under the Official Secrets Act, 1923, in April 2004.

Seeking bail for the accused, Advocate Adnan Memon submitted that only a special magistrate duly notified and authorized on this behalf by the provincial or federal government could take cognizance of and try an offence under the Official Secrets Act.

The government, the counsel said, has failed to notify a special magistrate despite a court direction that the trial be concluded expeditiously. He said the government has moved belatedly to ask the chief justice to recommend a judicial magistrate. In the circumstances, the accused should be released on bail.

The court ordered that the accused should be released on bail if he furnished security in the sum of Rs100,000 to the satisfaction of the judicial magistrate concerned.

Murtaza case: Justice Zia Pervez of the Sindh High Court asked the sessions court trying Mir Murtaza Bhutto’s murder case on Wednesday to explain why proceedings were being delayed.

Considering a criminal miscellaneous application moved by the father of a PPP (Shaheed Bhutto) activist killed along with Mir Murtaza and others in September 1996, the judge deplored that the trial had been inordinately delayed and trial court should explain the reasons behind the delay.

Applicant Haji Khan Rajpar, father of PPP(SB) activist Sattar Rajpar submitted through Mahmood A Qureshi that the high court had directed twice that the case should proceed from day-to-day. The first order was passed by chief justice Wajihuddin Ahmed in 1997. Another order was made subsequently but the trial was stalled for one reason or another.