KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday issued a bailable warrant against the provincial law secretary over his absence during the hearing of a petition seeking contempt of court proceeding against him and other officials over non-implementation of an earlier court order.

The SHC had issued directives in August last year on a set of petitions to provincial authorities to pay special judicial allowance to prosecutors of the Sindh Criminal Prosecution Service and its subordinate staff.

However, the petitioners moved the SHC again seeking contempt of court proceedings against respondents for not complying with the court order.

On the last hearing, the SHC directed the secretaries of law and finance to be in attendance on Sept 4 along with an explanation as to why the court order dated Aug 25, 2018 had not been implemented in letter and spirit.

When the matter came up for hearing before a two-judge bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan on Wednesday, the law secretary was found absent.

“Let bailable warrant in the sum of Rs25,000 be issued against Shariq Ahmed, secretary law, Government of Sindh for not attending the court for the next date of hearing”, the court order said.

An additional advocate general of Sindh filed statement and comments on behalf of the two alleged contemnors which was taken on record and the matter was adjourned for three weeks.

Earlier, the lawyer for the petitioners, Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed, submitted that a number of letters had been sent to the respondents for the implementation of the court order, but he was informed that the provincial authorities had approached the Supreme Court against the SHC’s order and thus the order in question could not be implemented.

However, the lawyer further argued that since the SHC order had neither been suspended nor any stay order had been granted by the apex court in favour of respondents, the Aug 25 order was very much in the field and has to be implemented.

The SHC last year had ordered to pay special judicial allowance equal to three times of the initial of the substantive pay scale to members of SCPS, their subordinate staff as well as the staff of district and deputy prosecutors with effect from July 1, 2017.

Bail of PSP’s Kamal, others extended

Another division bench of the SHC on Wednesday extended interim pre-arrest bail of former Karachi nazim and Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal and others in a reference about alleged illegal allotment of land till Sept 25 and directed both sides to advance their arguments at the next hearing.

Earlier, the SHC had granted an interim pre-arrest bail to Mustafa Kamal, then executive district officer Iftikhar Kaimkhani and others.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed a reference against former nazim and others in June regarding alleged illegal allotment of around 5,500 square yards of commercial land to Bahria Town for a multi-storey building in Clifton.

The bail applications were fixed for hearing before a two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M. Shaikh on Wednesday and the former nazim and others applicants appeared before the court.

However, a lawyer for Iftikhar Kaimkhani sought time on the grounds that the leading counsel was unwell.

Besides the former nazim and EDO, the NAB also named the then district coordination officer Fazlur Rehman, then district officer Mumtaz Haider, then additional DO Syed Nishat Ali, then sub-registrar-II, Clifton Nazir Zardari and builders Zain Malik, the son-in-law of real estate tycoon Malik Riaz, Mohammad Dawood, Mohammad Yaqoob, Mohammad Irfan and Mohammad Rafiq all associated with M/s DJ Builders and Developers as accused in the reference.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2019