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KARACHI, Sept 9: The Sindh High Court summoned the managing director of the Sindh Industrial and Trading Estate on Friday to explain on Sept 15 why the dues ordered to be paid by it to a suspended SITE official from 1999 onwards remained unpaid for about a year and a half.
SITE senior accounts officer Zahoor Ahmed Solangi was suspended from service in 1999 after his arrest in a fraud case registered by the anti-corruption establishment. He was released on bail by the anti-corruption court in 2001 and reported for duty immediately on his release.
The SITE management extended his suspension period from time to time and did not pay him any salary or allowance since 1999. He approached the high court, which directed the management in March 2004 to pay all his outstanding remunerations as a suspended employee was entitled to full salary.
The petitioner moved a contempt application when the amount was not paid as ordered. Advocate M Nawaz Shaikh submitted on his behalf that the SITE management had wilfully violated the court order on the pretence that an appeal against the payment order was pending in the Supreme Court, which has granted a stay. The counsel said the management has deposited a cheque for about Rs 424,000 with the SHC nazir belatedly.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Mohammad Afzal Soomro, asked the SITE managing director to appear in person to explain why the payment was delayed or withheld on the false pretext of an appeal.
NAB MAN’S PLEA: Another division bench, comprising Justices Ghulam Rabbani and Azizullah M. Memon, dismissed an acquittal application moved by Khadim Husain Khokhar, former National Accountability Bureau (NAB) deputy director for intelligence and investigation, Sindh region.
The applicant is facing trial for accepting Rs 10,000 in bribe. He submitted in his application that he was innocent and had been falsely implicated in the case at the behest of a person who was being investigated for corruption. There was no evidence and no possibility of his conviction, he said.
BAIL FOR EDITOR: Justice Rehmat Hussain Jafri, meanwhile, admitted Mohammad Tahir, editor, weekly Wajood, to bail in the sum of Rs75,000. He said he was booked and arrested two months ago for publishing material inciting sectarian hatred. He said he had only reproduced excerpts from a book that was not proscribed.
