September 11, 2008	Thursday	Ramazan 10, 1429

RAWALPINDI, Sept 10: The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench on Wednesday disposed of a habeas corpus petition of an under-trial prisoner languishing in different jails of the country for the last 22 years but directed the trial court to accept his bail in the last pending case.

The counsel for the petitioner, Siddique Mughal, told Dawn that Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha of the LHC directed the special judge central to grant bail to Mustafa Ismail Qazi in a case registered against him in 1986 by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under the passport act.

The petitioner, making the state and superintendent jail as respondents, stated that he had settled the dispute with the complainant and subsequently the case was disposed of. But the FIA again obtained the judicial remand of the petitioner on July 10 from special judge central. The special judge, he claimed, remanded him without checking the relevant record.

He said there was no judicial record available in the case and he was being kept in jail unlawfully.

The petitioner maintained that he had been in jails in Karachi, Hyderabad, Multan and Rawalpindi for the last 22 years without the conclusion of any trial in some 30 cases. He was brought to the Adiala jail in May to face two pending cases where he had already been granted bail, but no court orders were available.

He said it was in July that he came to know that a third case was also pending against him from which he was discharged after he made reconciliation with the complainant.