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KARACHI, Dec 22: A division bench of the Sindh High Court issued notices to federal and provincial attorneys on Monday in a petition challenging the establishment of the Thar Coal and Energy Board.
Petitioner-lawyer Ghulam Mustafa Mahesar submitted through Advocate Zamir Ghumro that the Sindh Assembly enacted a law in 1993 for mining of the vast coal reserves of the province and created a ‘Sindh Coal Authority’. Sections 6 and 7 of the 1993 Act empowered the provincial government to set up a board headed by the provincial mines minister and comprised of assembly members and officials of the province as mining is coal mining and is a provincial subject.
In July 2008, however, the cabinet division of the federal government prevailed upon the provincial government to constitute an independent Thar Coal and Energy Board over and above the statutory Thar Coal Authority. Coalfield leases and agreements with the independent power producers would now be concluded through the federal ministry for water and power ‘in violation of Article 154 of the Constitution’.
The petition came up before a division bench consisting of Justices Khilji Arif Hussain and Syed Mahmood Alam Rizvi and it issued notices to the advocate-general and a deputy attorney-general for a date after the winter recess.
Prisoners plight
Out of the 7,094 prisoners screened in the province’s jails, 885 were found suffering from hepatitis, newly-appointed inspector-general of prisons Mushtaq Ahmed Shah informed Justice Amir Hani Muslim on Monday. Skin diseases were also rife because of overcrowding in jails. The prisons department was making arrangements for treatment of the ailing prisoners, he said in his comments on a petition moved by prisoners’ rights campaigner Syed Iqbal Kazmi.
The judge ordered that all 326 prisoners transferred from the Malir jail after rioting there to the interior of the province should be brought back within two weeks. Jail wards should be set up at the Civil Hospital and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, within a month and frozen funds for treatment prisoners at Naushehro Feroz should also be released within two weeks.
