PESHAWAR, Feb 20: Efforts to seek remission of sentence of a convicted drug trafficker have hit new legal snags after Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani agreed to suspend the remaining sentence, senior government officials told Dawn.

The latest twist in what otherwise would have been a smooth- sailing case for the remission of sentence of a former provincial minister apparently came after second thoughts by the bureaucracy, one official said.

Amanullah Khan Kundi, a former provincial minister, who was sentenced to 25 years' rigorous imprisonment by a speedy trial court in Karachi in Jan 1991 for attempting to smuggle 10 kilograms of heroin, had moved an application with the NWFP Government seeking remission of his remaining sentence.

The move, according to government officials, could not have come without a nod from those at the helm. Mr Kundi hails from Dera Ismail Khan and had allegedly extended support to a key MMA leader in his election bid in return for a pledge to get his remaining sentence remitted.

The leader, said one official source, was one of the prominent figures who had visited the convict at the District Head-quarters Hospital, Dera Ismail Khan.

In June, 2003, Mr Kundi had applied to Inspector-General of Prisons, NWFP, requesting his release and remission of the remaining sentence on health grounds under the NWFP Prison Rule, 146. However, failing to get a favourable medical report, Mr Kundi, with the blessings of his powerful friends, succeeded in arranging for another medical board to be re-examined.

In November the same year, the Standing Medical Board at the DHQ Hospital, Dera Ismail Khan, on the orders of the NWFP Health Department, re-examined Mr. Kundi.

The board in its report concluded that "the diseases are permanent and incapacitating. He is a high risk patient especially in the presence of renal parenchyrnal diseases and refectory severe hypertension with subsequent development of left ventricular hypertrophy and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction.

"He is vulnerable to life threatening events any time. In case of emergency situation, management of life threatening events may not be possible in jail due to lack of medical facilities." But, pointed out an official source, the board, avoided declaring Mr Kundi as permanently incapacitated to warrant either remission or suspension of his remaining sentence and concluded that the convict was vulnerable to life-threatening events.

"Is he the only soul languishing in jail susceptible to life threatening events?" asked the official source. "There could be thousands of such people suffering from similar maladies. What about them?" However, having secured a favourable report from the medical board, Mr Kundi formally moved an application seeking remission of his prison sentence.

The NWFP Home Department moved summary for the purpose that subsequently went to the Law Department, proposing to invoke Section 401 of the Criminal Procedure Code that deals with suspension, remissions and commutations of sentences by a provincial government.

According to official sources, the summary went up the ladder and finally reached the desk of the chief minister who, while agreeing to the recommendations made by the administrative departments concerned, approved suspension of Mr Kundi's sentence.

However, apparently on second thoughts, a senior government official, threw a spanner in the works, by seeking comments whether the NWFP government was competent to suspend a sentence handed down by a court in Sindh.

Insiders said that the provincial government, while granting the suspension in prison term, "exercised its discretionary powers" by virtue of the word "may" in Section 401 CrPC that states that the provincial government "may at any time without conditions or upon any conditions which the person sentenced accepts, suspend the execution of his sentence or remit the whole or any part of the punishment to which he has been sentenced."

However, while exercising its discretion, the provincial government chose to ignore Sub-section (2) which states that "whenever an application is made to the Provincial Government for the suspension or remission of a sentence, the Provincial Government may require the presiding judge of the court (in this case speedy trial court, Karachi) before or by which the conviction was had or confirmed to state his opinion as to whether the application should be granted or refused, together with his reasons for such opinion."

That the matter regarding Mr Kundi's application was treated so seriously, according to the knowledgeable official source, was evident from the fact that it had been discussed several times by senior government officials before the law department gave its opinion.

"There had been several meetings where it was discussed thoroughly before the law department gave its opinion," the official said. What however came as a surprise, said the official, was the after-thought.

"The chief minister has given his approval for the suspension of Kundi's prison term. The chief secretary has now asked a query. I really don't know whether the Rules of Business allows for the reversal of the decision," the official said.

The summary has now gone back to the chief secretary, after the NWFP Home and Law Departments recorded, yet again, the respective positions, the former insisting the provincial government could in its discretion grant suspension and remission. The NWFP Law Department, however, now appears to have taken a different view.