KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday allowed the management of the city’s only adventure park, Go Aish Karachi, to reopen the facility.

Headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar, a two-judge bench was hearing a constitutional petition filed by the firm operating the park against its closure by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) over non-payment of outstanding dues.

The KMC had reportedly closed down the park in April last year over non-payment of dues of Rs1.8 million.

The petitioner’s counsel informed the judges that Go Aish was the only park of its kind in the city.

He said that the firm had deposited the disputed amount of Rs1.2m with the nazir of the court and prayed to the court to allow the park to be reopened.

Pre-arrest bail extended

Another division bench of the SHC extended the pre-arrest bail granted to three co-accused persons in corruption cases against Dr Asim Hussain, former federal petroleum minister and a close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari.

The cases pertained to depriving the public exchequer of Rs462m by misusing his authority to get land allotted illegally, encroaching upon state land for expansion of Dr Ziauddin Hospital, money laundering and receiving kickbacks.

The co-accused persons were former petroleum secretary Mohammad Ejaz Chaudhry, administrator of Ziauddin Medical Centre, Dubai, Abdul Hameed, and Karachi Dock Labour Board’s former chief executive officer Safdar Hussain.

Their counsel contended that the prime accused in the case, Dr Asim Hussain, was still in custody and the pre-arrest bail granted to his clients might be taken up after the decision on the bail application of Dr Asim.

Meanwhile, a two-judge bench directed the National Accountability Bureau to submit in court the complete list of the accused persons in corruption references against self-exiled leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party and former provincial information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon.

The bench was hearing the pre-arrest applications of the accused persons, including former provincial information secretary Zulfiqar Shalwani.

One of the references, sent by the NAB chairman, said that the investigation was conducted regarding corruption and corrupt practices in the advertisement awareness campaigns on TV and FM channels between July 2013 and June 2015 and it was found that the accused acted in connivance with each other resulting in a loss of Rs3,279,177,029 to the national exchequer.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2017