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KARACHI, Feb 28: The Supreme Court admitted on Wednesday a petition for leave to appeal moved by Begum Salma Ahmad, chairperson of the Pakistan Association of Women Entrepreneurs, and stayed accountability court proceedings in a reference against her.
The petitioner is standing trial for misappropriation of Rs120 million in public funds allegedly received by her for a welfare centre for women. The accountability court trying her allowed the NAB to reopen its side after closing it. She challenged the trial court order in the Sindh High Court, which dismissed her petition. The SHC order was challenged by her counsel, Farooq H. Naek, who said the trial court could not allow fresh evidence after closure of the prosecution side. Pending the petition, he prayed that the trial court be restrained from entertaining new prosecution evidence.
An SC bench comprising Justices Rana Bhagwandas and Abdul Hamid Dogar granted the petitioner leave to appeal.
JUDICIAL OFFICERS: The bench also allowed four petitions moved by a district judge and an additional district judge through Advocate Ghulam Qadir Jatoi challenging strictures passed against them by the SHC while deciding appeals against their orders. Mir Mohammad Shaikh, district and sessions judge, Sanghar, and Ghulam Asghar Abbasi, additional district judge, Moro. Advocate Jatoi said the judicial officers were condemned unheard. They were neither issued notices nor heard by the high court.
RAPE CASE: Justice Bhagwandas, meanwhile, heard complainant Naila of Sanghar and her father, Liaqat Ali, in chamber in a human rights case. She complained that she was raped by six persons but the police was proceeding only against three of them.
The case was disposed of with the observation that the complainant may seek her remedy against the accused from a court of competent jurisdiction.
