KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday directed the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, Sindh Building Control Authority and other respondents to inform it if a private university, named after the father of Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain, could be constructed on an amenity plot.

A division bench comprising Justices Sajjad Ali Shah and Shaukat Ali Memon was seized with the preliminary hearing of a petition challenging the construction of the Nazeer Hussain University (NHU) in a ground in Federal B Area.

The petitioner submitted that the university was being established illegally as it could not be constructed on the ground meant for residents.

The bench issued notices to the respondents directing them to submit their respective replies till Oct 20 when it would again take up the matter.

Deputation case

Another division bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi directed the chief secretary, education secretary, director of school education and others to furnish their respective replies in a petition against induction of officers on deputation in the education department.

The bench that also comprised Justice Azizur Rehman was seized with the petition of Shahid Khan, an education department employee, who sought court injunction against the officers inducted on deputation.

The petitioner, represented by Advocate Malik Altaf Javed, stated that several officers, including Ijaz Soomro, were transferred from other departments and inducted into the education department on a deputation basis.

His counsel informed the judges that several officers on deputation in the education department were repatriated to their parent departments after the direction of the Supreme Court that had declared the deputation of officers illegal and directed their repatriation.

He said that respondent Soormo was accountant in BPS-16 and he was posted in the education department in 1997 on deputation from the agriculture department.

The petitioner asked the court to direct the repatriation of all officers on deputation in the education department to their respective parent department in view of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The bench issued notices to the respondents and the provincial law officer and put off the hearing to a date to be later announced by the court’s office.

SHC irked by Punjab IG’s failure to reply

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar expressed extreme displeasure over the failure of the Punjab police chief in filing his reply regarding the service of a notice on Bilal Khar, the prime suspect in a 2000 case pertaining to an acid attack on his wife.

The bench had earlier issued a fresh notice to the suspect, son of former Punjab governor Ghulam Mustafa Khar, directing him to submit his reply in a petition seeking fresh investigation into the case against him.

The petition was filed by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Shirkat Gah and Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum.

According to the petitioners, Bilal Khar, a former Punjab MPA, was acquitted because the four eyewitnesses in the case refused to identify him in court due to his alleged influence.

The petitioners’ counsel, Advocate Faisal Siddiqui, submitted in the petition that the case should be reinvestigated under the Criminal Law (Second Amendment) Act, 2011.

He said that Khar, who attacked her wife Fakhra Younus in May 2000, was arrested after a delay of nearly two years and finally acquitted by a sessions judge for lack of evidence on Dec 16, 2003.

Ms Fakhra committed suicide by jumping off the sixth floor of her apartment in Italy on March 17, 2012. She was sent abroad for a plastic surgery.

During a previous hearing, the court had issued a notice to Mr Khar through the Punjab police chief after it was informed that he was arrested by the Kot Addu police in an attack case and currently was in custody of the Punjab police.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2014