July 17, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 20, 1427

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PESHAWAR, July 16: Local trial courts have started collecting details about under trial women prisoners for releasing them on bail under a recently promulgated presidential ordinance.

An official of the central prison said that they had sent a list of about 52 such women to the trial courts concerned with the request to release them on bail. He said they had also sent separate bail applications on behalf of these prisoners.

A judicial magistrate told Dawn that they were collecting details about the prisoners for necessary orders.

“We have to see different legal aspects to ascertain if their bail petitions are pending before other courts,” the magistrate said.

He said that if the bail petition of an accused was pending before a superior court, including high court and supreme court, magisterial court could not proceed on it.

Moreover, he said, these prisoners had to submit surety bonds before they could be released.

An official told Dawn that most of the 52 women prisoners had been charged with narcotics trafficking.

So far, only four women have been released in the province under the presidential ordinance; two from Dera Ismail Khan central prison and one each from the Abbotabad and Bannu district prisons.

President Pervez Musharraf, on July 7, had promulgated the ordinance through which amendments were made to Section 497 of the CrPC to give right to women prisoners to get bail in cases except those about murder, terrorism and financial corruption.

Legal circles, however, questioned equating the offence of financial corruption with murder and terrorism, and said that the amendment was Benazir-specific.

Some members of the People’s Lawyers Forum stated that the purpose of exempting financial corruption cases was to arrest Ms Benazir Bhutto on her return to the country.