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KARACHI, Feb 26: A division bench of the Sindh High Court issued a bailable warrant on Tuesday to ensure the presence of a police official in a case pertaining to a missing person.
According to petitioner Humeira Ali, her husband, Ali Mohammad, was picked up by law-enforcement personnel from his Gulshan-i-Iqbal residence on May 5, 2004. He was a religious scholar but was not associated with any outlawed militant outfit, she claimed. A case was registered by the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police following a high court direction on her habeas corpus petition. However, the investigation was soon closed as there was no evidence to support the allegations made in the FIR.
The petition came up before a division bench consisting of Justices Azizullah M. Memon and Arshad Noor Khan but the SHO of the Gulshan police station who had been directed to furnish the record of the investigations into the closed case failed to appear. Representing the petitioner, Advocate Chaudhry Mohammad Iqbal submitted that the respondent had failed to comply with the court orders and was evading the summons. He said the petitioner had named in her complaint the names of the police officials who arrested her husband and he wanted to ascertain from the record whether their statements were recorded.
The bench ordered that a warrant bailable in the sum of Rs50,000 should be issued to compel the respondent to appear on the next date in the first week of March.
Displaced persons
City district government counsel Manzoor Ahmed, meanwhile, submitted documents showing that the 22 petitioners of Madina and Rahmatia colonies affected by the construction of the Lyari Expressway had been paid compensation. Advocates Ghulam Qadir and Fatima Jatoi, however, informed a division bench consisting of Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Farrukh Zia Shaikh that no compensation had been received by the petitioners. The payment orders were probably issued to the government treasury officer, who had taken no action on them. The bench asked the treasury officer to appear on March 12 and clarify whether the payment orders were issued and, if so, why no payment was made to the petitioners.
Notice to SPSC
Another division bench comprising Justices Mrs Qaiser Iqbal and Syed Mahmood Alam Rizvi issued a notice to the Sindh Public Service Commission in a petition against his rejection for the post of public prosecutor.
Petitioner-lawyer Hussain Farooq Jatoi maintained that the basic qualification for the district prosecutor’s post was law graduation and five years’ legal practice, with two years’ relaxation for holders of post-graduate degrees in law. He said he had been adjudged two months short of the practical experience because his six-month internship period was not being treated as part of legal practice in violation of the rules. He was also entitled to relaxation for being an LL.M. He filed an appeal against his rejection but the commission did not respond and started interviewing candidates for the post.
