PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday summoned federal secretaries of defence and finance and two others for indicting them in a contempt of court petition as the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments failed to pay compensation to a family, whose six members were killed in bombing by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) over four years ago.

The bench of Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Mussarat Hilali ordered that the secretaries of defence and finance, KP secretary law and order (Fata) and Peshawar commissioner should appear in person in the petition filed by Khan Wali, a resident of Tirah valley, so that they should be indicted for committing contempt of the court by not releasing compensation to the aggrieved family despite court orders.

Next date for hearing the case will be fixed later.

Advocate Hashim Khan Mengal appeared for the petitioner and stated that the fighte rjets of PAF had bombed Tirah valley in 2014 during which six family members of the petitioner including his wife and five children were killed and his residence was destroyed.

Resident of Tirah valley moved court for seeking compensation

He said that a son of the petitioner remained unharmed as he was not present at his residence at that time. He stated that in 2017, Peshawar High Court accepted a petition filed by the petitioner and ordered the government to pay diyat (blood money) to him.

The counsel stated that the government challenged the decision of the high court before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which also upheld the judgment of the high court on Oct 30, 2018 and directed the government to pay the diyat/compensation within 15 days.

He contended that despite clear directives given by the superior courts, the federal and provincial governments were using delaying tactics. He added that the petitioner was then suffering from some mental ailment.

Mansoor Tariq, a deputy attorney general, said that federal government had already conveyed to the provincial government that it should pay compensation to the families of those killed in acts of terrorism or other attacks. He said that it was then responsibility of provincial government to pay compensation to the petitioner as the former tribal areas were then part of this province.

An additional advocate general disputed the claim made by the deputy attorney general and said that there was no such communication made between the federal and provincial governments under which the compensation had to be made by the latter.

He added that the provincial government had not received any amount from the federal government in the instant case so as to onward pay it to the petitioner.

The bench observed that he high court and Supreme Court of Pakistan had in clear terms ordered the government to pay diyat money to the petitioner. It was observed that by violating the courts orders the relevant officials had been committing contempt of the court.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2019