KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed a provincial law officer to ensure that draft bills of the Sindh CNG Kit & Cylinder Fitness Authority and Motor Vehicles (amendments) Ordinance must be placed before the cabinet for further proceedings within 15 days.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar also issued directives for the lawmaking authority to consider proposals and suggestions, submitted by the petitioners and their lawyers, to make the implementation of the act viable.

When a set of identical petitions about use of substandard CNG kits and cylinders in commercial vehicles as well as school vans came up for hearing on Wednesday, Additional Advocate General (AAG) Jawaid Dero submitted a copy of the summary of the draft bills sent to the cabinet for approval.

He submitted that these draft bills were vetted by the law department and submitted to the chief minister, who also approved them.

The bench has gone through the drafts and observed that Section 4 pertained to establishment of the CNG Kit & Cylinder Fitness Authority and Section 25 was germane to the powers to make rules for carrying out the purposes of this act.

The counsel for the petitioners submitted that they had also prepared an alternative plan and provided a copy.

Advocate Tariq Mansoor, one of the petitioners, also filed a statement and copies of the Explosives Act and Explosives Rules and submitted that some necessary provisions were to be incorporated in the intended legislation.

The AAG submitted that both the drafts bills would be placed before the cabinet for approval in its next meeting.

Plan against stray dogs

The same bench on Wednesday directed the local government secretary to get the approval of the PC-I of a proposed project to retain street/stray dogs and release them after sterilisation and vaccination, and submit a compliance report on Dec 20.

The bench also asked a recently notified task force to implement its earlier order to help local administration with detention and control of stray dogs and make serious efforts to solve the issue.

At the outset, LG Secretary Roshan Ali Shaikh submitted a progress report in compliance with an earlier order and informed the bench that the task force had been established through a notification issued on Nov 17 by the chief secretary.

He further submitted that in its first meeting, the task force discussed the need for legislation for street/stay dogs, adding that 192 veterinary dispensaries/hospitals were available in the province and in the first phase, there was a plan to establish 64 anti-rabies units for TNR (trap, neuter and release) to control dog population.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2019