December 30, 2008	Tuesday	Muharram 01,1430

KARACHI, Dec 29: A division bench of the Sindh High Court comprising Justice Azizullah M. Memon and Justice Faisal Arab on Monday directed the Landhi TPO to produce the list of cases filed by a retired army officer against a landlord, Qamaruddin Arain, a litigant in an army land case.

Petitioner Ms Farzana Qamar has moved the court through advocate Kausar Amin submitting that her husband, Qamaruddin Arain, was allotted 184 agricultural acres army land in Landhi in 1992 on a contract basis. He cultivated the land and installed a tube-well with an investment of Rs3.5 million to Rs4 million.

She alleged that refined Major Shahid Hafeez, an official of the Prop Pacific Security Agency, along with other officials, obtained the land’s allotment on forged documents. In order to restrain her husband from going for litigation, the official implicated him in criminal cases. She further stated that although he had obtained pre-arrest bail in October 2008, police and Anti-corruption Establishment (ACE) personnel were harassing him and other family members. She prayed to the court to restrain the police and other officials from harassing the family. She also requested the court to seek the list of cases registered against her husband by the officials concerned.

The bench directed the provincial advocate-general and the Landhi TPO to produce the list of cases registered against Qamruddin Arain till Jan 5, 2009.

‘Blacklisted’ passports case

The same bench issued notices to the deputy attorney-general, a former Pakistani ambassador to Oman, FIA and other respondents over the alleged blacklisting of six overseas Pakistanis’ passports.

Petitioner Syed Samiuddin Al-Qadri has moved the court through advocate Rasheed A. Razvi submitting that he was a professional civil engineer and had been residing in Muscat (Oman) since 1999 on a valid residential visa.

He said that FIA personnel detained him on his arrival in Karachi on March 3, 2008 on the grounds that his passport was “blacklisted” following a complaint lodged with the Pakistan authorities on Nov 12, 2007. Since the matter was referred to the FIA’s crime circle, Karachi, for a probe, the passport of the petitioner and five others persons were with the FIA.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that the passports were illegally declared blacklisted, and claimed that the issue was linked with a child custody case involving the families of the petitioners and other affected people. He said that some officials of the Pakistan mission in Muscat were also involved in the matter.

The next hearing of the case has been fixed for January 2, 2009.

Notice to CBF

The same bench issued a notice to the chief executive officer of the Cantonment Board Faisal (CBF), a cellphone firm and another respondent in a petition against the installation of a cellular antenna in a residential area.

Petitioner Ikram Khan submitted that a private cellular phone firm had installed a BTS tower atop a flat in Gulshan-i-Jamal, Karachi. He added that the rays emitted by the tower posed a serious threat to public health.—PPI