ISLAMABAD: In response to a plea by PPP Senator Taj Haider, the Supreme Court directed a Punjab government officer on Thursday to attend the hearing on Dec 9, along with a minor girl given in her protection in a child custody case.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali asked Nazia Tabbasum, a child protection officer of Punjab’s Child Protection & Welfare Bureau, to appear before it along with five-year-old Wajiha.

The court also issued a notice to the Punjab government, another respondent in the case.

Take a look: PPP leader wants to adopt a child

However, before issuing the notices, the chief justice inquired what locus standi Mr Haider had to claim the custody of the girl by depriving the bureau of her upkeep.

Mr Haider and his wife, Naheed Wasi Haider, had moved an appeal against the July 1 judgment of the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench which had rejected a similar plea filed by them.

“She is my child and every destitute is my child,” Mr Haider commented while talking to reporters after the hearing, adding that the case would change the future of all the destitute in the country.

The question regarding the custody of Baby Wajiha surfaced when an advertisement appeared at social networking website Facebook in February last year for locating her parents after she was found in a park in Attock.

Subsequently, the petitioners (Mr and Mrs Haider) called on the telephone number given in the advertisement and talked to Syed Amanullah Shah, husband of Ms Tabbasum, expressing their desire for the child’s custody.

The petition pleaded that Wajiha had been illegally handed over to Ms Tabbasum and that she should have been kept at the bureau’s shelter home or any other shelter home — an act which contravenes Section 51(5) of the law concerned.

Mr Haider said he was keen to adopt the girl in case her parents were not found, adding that he had visited Islamabad many times earlier during which he was received by Ms Tabbasum’s family at the airport where he had also met the minor. The senator said he had brought gifts for the girl which had been happily received by the family.

On the suggestion of the family large stickers had been printed and pasted on vehicles and buses to locate the girl’s parents. The petitioner said he himself saw one such sticker on an inter-city bus near Hyderabad.

Mr Haider said he visited the bureau several times and met the girl. Subsequently, he moved a custody application before the Special Court of Punjab for the destitute and neglected children in Rawalpindi on Feb 24 last year.

Meanwhile, one Moham­mad Kashif moved an application in the same court, claiming that the minor might be his lost daughter. The DNA test, however, did not prove his claim.

Mr Haider said that Ms Tabbasum’s family with alleged ulterior motive had violated the law and kept the custody of the girl without lawful authority by misusing her official position.

He said she could not be entrusted with the custody of the girl as she did not fall within the definition of suitable person being in-charge of the institution under the law.

Since both Ms Tabbasum and her husband had to attend their duty in their respective offices, Wajiha was looked after by younger sister of Ms Tabbasum’s husband, who lives with them and whose education had to be discontinued after her parent died, the petitioner said.

The petitioner contended that both Ms Tabbasum and her husband were young and of child bearing age. Though they were without any child at present, in this modern age fertility medical treatment was available, the petition said.

The petitioner said he was fearful of the treatment Wajiha might receive in the family.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2015