KARACHI, June 3: The Sindh High Court issued notices to the advocate-general in a petition moved by former provincial minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh for transfer of a kidnapping case being tried against him by an anti-terrorism court.
Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch, the petitioner said, was partial and beholden to the chief minister for his appointment to and continuation in office.
He said the special judge held the office during the pleasure of the chief minister, who was out to victimize him for political reasons. His case, Advocates Raj a Qureshi and Fareed A. Dayo argued, should be transferred to another anti-terrorism court, headed by a judicial officer.
Mr Baloch was a lawyer and was to remain in office for two-and-a-half years unless earlier terminated.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Mrs Qaiser Iqbal, issued notice to the advocate-general for June 6.
REINSTATED: The Federal Service Tribunal, meanwhile, reinstated an employee of the Water and Power Development Authority with retrospective effect from the date of his compulsory retirement. The authority was, however, allowed to proceed against him in accordance with the law within four months. Back benefits would depend on the outcome of fresh inquiry.
Advocate Mansoorul Haq Solangi argued that appellant Sher Mohammad, was compulsorily retired in October 2003 without a regular inquiry and without affording him an opportunity of personal hearing.
The allegations against him were serious enough to warrant the maximum penalty, yet a summary procedure under Removal from Service (Special Powers) Ordinance, 2000, was adopted, the lawyer argued. An FST bench, comprising Qazi Mohammad Hussain Siddiqui and Mr Rashid Ali Mirza, allowed the appeal.
DEFAMATION SUIT: The Sindh High Court asked a publication on Friday to pay Rs500,000 for defaming an air- hostess and also publish a contradiction of a fabricated report carried by it.
Plaintiff Saadia Sumbul Butt, a senior air-hostess and purser, instituted a suit for libel through Advocate Ashfaq Husain Rizvi in the high court, complaining that a newspaper published a derogatory report about Air League, an organization founded by her and other PIA employees in 1999. She and other angry employees condemned the report at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club and burnt copies of the daily.
The daily’s weekly magazine then carried a scurrilous report about her and another air hostess along with a picture showing her burning a copy of the daily at the press club.
The report, which contained an entirely unfounded attack on her character and alleged that she was found in an objectionable condition in a Paris hotel where she stayed while on duty as a crew member, was full of malice and intended to lower her standing in society.
She said the author of the tendentious report and the publisher of the magazine should be directed to pay her punitive damages amounting to Rs50 million. She said the libellous report hurt her in her profession and caused her mental torture.
Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui observed that the report was false and defamatory and decreed a sum of Rs500,000 to vindicate the plaintiff’s honour.
FIR QUASHED: Justice Mohammad Moosa K. Leghari, meanwhile, quashed a Hudood case registered against two men and three women after a raid by a police party without search warrants.
The complainant, sub-inspector Mumtaz Abro of Sharea Faisal police station, claimed that he was on patrol duty on March 28 when he received ‘spy’ information that ‘some ladies and gentlemen were present at flat number A-11/28, Jauhar Square, Gulistan-i-Jauhar’. A raid was conducted by a police party and two men and five women were taken into custody.
The detainees moved a bail application stating that the case registered under the Prevention of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance was false and fabricated but an additional sessions judge rejected the plea.
They approached the high court and Justice Moosa Leghari noted that the police officials entered the flat without a search warrant and the raid was conducted without co-opting a respectable person of the locality.
The investigation was conducted in flagrant violation of Section 156-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure. There was not an iota of evidence to connect the accused with the commission of an offence under the Zina ordinance.
The registration of the FIR was illegal and the entire proceedings were vitiated. Exercising the inherent jurisdiction of the high court under Section 561-A of CrPC, the judge quashed the FIR and released the accused.
