February 16, 2008	Saturday	Safar 08, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 15: The Sindh High Court directed the provincial government on Friday to transfer a nationalized school to its former private owner within three weeks.

The order was passed by a division bench comprising Justices Yasmin Abbasy and Ghulam Dastgir Shahani on a petition moved by the National Education Society, the owner of the school situated in Block 12 of the Federal ‘B’ Area before its nationalization in 1972, through Advocate S.M. Ishrat Ghazali.

The petitioner society submitted that educational institutions were denationalized and returned to their former owners under various executive orders. A comprehensive policy was announced in September 2001 to privatize the nationalized schools. While other owners got their institutions restored, the petitioner was discriminated against by the provincial education department.

The society approached the high court when the education department continued to stall the return of its school. A division bench found the petitioner’s case unexceptionable and, with the education department’s consent, ordered on November 25, 2005, that the school should be handed over to the society within a month.

The department continued to procrastinate in violation of the court and its own assurance and the petitioner moved a contempt application. The department alleged that the school was built over 3.5 acres, which were claimed by another individual.

The petitioner denied the allegation and said its title was clear and unencumbered and the respondent department was itself delaying privatization because of the landed property attached to the institution. The petition came up for hearing on Friday and the court ordered that the 2005 court order should be complied with within three weeks without fail.

Execution stay vacated

Another division bench consisting of Justices Mrs Qaiser Iqbal and Mahmood Alam Rizvi vacated its stay order against the execution of murder convict Javed Malik. The convict was tried for killing Amir Kakar, son of Jamhoori Watan Party vice-president Ashraf Kakar, in July 1997 and was sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court. He challenged his conviction and sentence in the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court but his appeals were dismissed. His mercy petition was also rejected by President Pervez Musharraf.

The trial court issued the black warrant for his execution on February 12 but a lawyer, Javed Iqbal Burq, filed an urgent review petition claiming that the convict had been pardoned by the complainant father of the victim and other legal heirs. The division bench stayed the execution and issued notices to the provincial government and the complainant under the law of qisas and diyet.

The complainant’s counsel, Advocate Iftikhar Qazi, and Additional Advocate-General Fareed A. Dayo denied any compromise between the convict and the victim’s heirs and the bench summoned Advocate Burq.

As the case came up for hearing on Friday, the bench admonished the advocate for obtaining a stay order by making a false statement and vacated its stay to allow the law to take its course.

Bail granted

The bench, meanwhile, granted bail to a former deputy collector of customs Kaukab Sabihuddin Ahmed, who is facing trial for possessing assets disproportionate to known sources of his income. He is accused by the National Accountability Bureau of depositing Rs4.5 million in a bank account opened in his wife’s name. The accused resigned from service in 2004. Representing the accused, Advocate Amer Raza Naqvi argued that there was no evidence of corruption against him or that the money in his wife’s bank account really belonged to him.

The bench ordered the accused to execute a personal bond in the sum of Rs 100,000 and deposit Rs 4.5 million with the bank wherein his wife operated her account as security to win his release on bail.

Justice Khwaja Naveed Ahmed admitted an accused allegedly found in possession of 850 kilograms of charas in the sum of Rs200,000. Anti-Narcotics Force counsel Ashfaq Hussain Rizvi submitted that charas was recovered from a Gulistan-i-Jauhar apartment exclusively owned by the accused, Mohammad Hasil, on information obtained from his co-accused. The recovery was duly witnessed and recorded. There was no personal enmity and the case fell within the prohibitory clause of the Control of Narcotic Substances Act. The role assigned to the applicant was more serious than the one ascribed to co-accused. Prosecution was not to blame for delay in trial.

Advocate Iqtidar Ali Hashmi argued on behalf of the accused that the case had been pending for three years and all the accused except Hasil had been freed on bail. It would be unjust and against the principle of consistency if Hasil remained behind bars for an indefinite period. The evidence against the accused was flawed and there was no likelihood of his absconding from the trial, the counsel said.