KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday again expressed extreme displeasure on the performance of police, joint investigation team and provincial task force for making no progress in tracing the whereabouts of ‘missing’ persons.

While hearing dozens of petitions about missing persons, the two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Aftab Ahmed Gorar deplored that no progress had been made in the cases as the authorities concerned were submitting identical progress reports on every hearing.

They not only failed to locate the whereabouts of the petitioners’ relatives, but also remained unable to obtain reports from those institutions impleaded as respondents in the petitions, Justice Gorar added.

He further observed that the sessions of JIT and provincial task force also remained fruitless, adding that complaints of petitioners against the police were mounting.

The bench directed the authorities concerned to put in extra efforts to trace the ‘detainees’ and submit reports by June 21.

The petitioners informed the bench during the hearing that the police called them at the police stations just to make them suffer.

School fee

A three-judge bench of the SHC on Thursday referred a set of petitions against increases in tuition fees by private schools to the chief justice.

The bench sent the matter to Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh for the constitution of a new bench for hearing the petitions as one of its members was said to have recused himself.

Earlier, Barrister Kamal Azfar, representing one of the schools, had also raised objection over the formation of the bench and sought the constitution of a larger bench to hear the petition.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2018