KARACHI, Jan 26: The Sindh High Court summoned the federal interior secretary and a section officer to appear personally to answer contempt allegations by an accused prosecuted on accountability charges.
The applicant, Ashaq Baig, said he was acquitted by the high court in a National Accountability Bureau reference alleging that he was transferred from the navy to the national shipping corporation by Admiral Mansoorul Haq to facilitate purchase of defective vessels for the corporation for personal gain. His passport was seized. A petition for leave to appeal against the SHC acquittal order was moved before the Supreme Court in April 2004. A caveat has been entered by Ashfaq Baig in the pending petition through his counsel, Azizullah Shaikh.
When he applied for a passport to take up a job abroad after his acquittal, Baig was informed that his name appeared on the exit control list for though he had been freed by the high court, a petition for leave to appeal was pending before the Supreme Court.
He challenged the travel ban and the high court held that unless the Supreme Court suspended the acquittal order or passed any other order upsetting it, the SHC decision shall hold the field. What was pending before the SC was not an appeal but a petition for leave to appeal, an SHC division bench said.
The passport was not issued despite the second SHC order and the petitioner sued the interior ministry for contempt.
