KARACHI: A Supreme Court judge has directed the provincial authorities to obtain an allotment letter of 30 acres of land in Malir, meant for establishing a Sindh prosecution academy, within a month, Dawn has learnt.

Justice Faisal Arab of the apex court also observed that proper standard operating procedures (SOPs) were needed to be prepared to ensure that no innocent person was wrongly implicated in any criminal case with mala fide intentions.

These directives were issued by Justice Arab while presiding over a meeting regarding monitoring of the antiterrorism courts held recently at the Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry and attended by administrative judge of ATCs Sindh Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro of the Sindh High Court judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso of the ATC-I Karachi, chief secretary of Sindh Mumtaz Ali Shah, prosecutor general of Sindh Dr Faiz Shah and deputy registrar of the apex court Munwar Ali.

According to the minutes of the meeting, it was stated that the land measuring 30 acres in Malir district adjacent to the site reserved for forensic science laboratory had been allocated for establishing the Sindh prosecution academy. However, as the post of member (land utilisation) board of revenue was lying vacant, the allotment letter could not be issued, it added.

Since it is an important issue, Justice Arab directed the chief secretary to obtain the allotment letter as soon as the post of the member land utilisation is filled and it was also decided that the next hearing on this issue would be convened after a month and by then all requisite formalities for allotment of land in question should be completed.

The apex court also directed a committee, comprising the prosecutor general of Sindh and member inspection team (MIT-II) SHC Abdul Razzaq, to pursue this matter and get all the requisite work done within a month, adding that the committee can seek help of the chief secretary.

In a previous meeting, it was decided that until the prosecution academy was fully established side by side with the forensic science laboratory, the government would provide a building so that the academy could start its work temporarily.

Therefore, it was said that the building of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto University of Law was likely to be vacated as the university was set to be shifted soon in its new building in Korangi, the prosecution academy will start to function as soon as the building was handed over to the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2019