HYDERABAD: A bench of the Sindh High Court Hyderabad circuit on Wednesday restrained the senior superintendent of police (SSP) of Shaheed Benazirabad from arresting an applicant without permission of the relevant sessions judge even if he or his family member was involved in any offence.

If any harm to the suspect or his family was caused or reported, the SSP should be held responsible, the single judge bench said.

Justice Amjad Ali Sahito wrote a detailed order while disposing of an application of Mohsin Shakeel who claimed to have been booked in false cases for divorcing his wife who belonged to an influential family of Nawabshah.

According to the court’s order, the applicant sought pre-arrest bail in crime No. 61/23 registered at the airport police station, Nawabshah, for an offence of Control of Narcotic Substances Act 1997. He was denied bail by the sessions court on April 14.

Counsel Dildar Khan Leghari represented Shakeel and Benazirabad SSP Ameer Saud Magsi was in attendance.

Mr Leghari argued that his client, who was an employee of Muslim Commercial Bank, Sanghar, was falsely implicated in the case. Around nine years ago, the applicant had married Uzma Arain and four to five months ago divorced her, he added.

After the divorce, he said, a local Sindh Assembly member of his former wife’s community started creating problem for him. A series of cases were registered against him resultantly, he added.

On account of the said enmity and at the instigation of the MPA belonging to the Arain community the applicant was falsely booked in the cases, the counsel said, adding that his client apprehended after the release, he would be implicated in false cases once again or murdered

The court called the SSP of Benazirabad vide order May 15. He appeared before the court and undertook to investigate cases and take action against the investigating officers who booked him in false cases.

On Wednesday, the SSP submitted that after an inquiry, he suspended the police officials involved in filing the false cases against the applicant.

He said he had issued show-cause notices to those policemen for registering the false cases. He had appointed a DSP as enquiry officer with the directives to conduct a departmental enquiry against them, he said, disclosing that five FIRs had been disposed of in relevant classes.

The court ordered that in view of the re-investigation by the Benazirabad SSP, the recovery of charas was foisted upon the applicant, thus, the court granted him bail in a sum of Rs5,000.

The judge directed the SSP to dispose of the cases in relevant classes within 15 days, saying that the SSP would supervise the departmental inquiry against delinquent police officials.

The court instructed the SSP to ensure that no harm was caused to the applicant or his family and if it did then SSP should be held responsible.

The court ordered that since a series of cases were registered against the applicant due to the enmity with the Arain community after the divorce to his wife; therefore, the SSP was restrained from lodging further cases against him or his family members without prior permission from the sessions judge of Benazirabad or Sanghar.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2023