PESHAWAR, April 12: The Peshawar High Court on Monday ruled thatpeople facing charges in the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata) couldbe released on bail in case of delays in their trials. A bench comprising Justice Qazi Ahsanullah Qureshi granted bail to three people accused of robberies in the Swat district.

It ruled that the ordinance through which the proviso of the Criminal Procedure Code dealing with bail on the grounds of delay in trial was repealed was not extended to Pata by the government.

The petitioners, Sirajul Haq, Darwaiza and Dawood, had been behind thebars for about three years without the commencement of their trial. The bench ordered that they be released after furnishing two sureties each of Rs100,000.

The government had in 2001 repealed a proviso to Section 497, which empowered the court to release an accused on bail if there was delay in the conclusion of his trial.

The petitioners were arrested in connection with an FIR registered on Feb 20, 2001, at Mingora police station under Section 17(3) of the Offence Against Property(Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979, readwith sections 400 and 401 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The police claimed that unidentified robbers had looted seven houses. Later they arrested the three accused and claimed that they belonged to a gang of dacoits. Sirajul Haq was arrested on June 18, 2001, and the other two petitioners were arrested on Oct 10, 2001.

They were behind the bars since then but the charge-sheet of their casehas yet to be presented before the court. Advocate Mohammad Ijaz Khan appeared for the petitioners and argued that the FIR of the case was registered after a delay of three days and the accused were not charged in it.

He argued that though proviso 3 to Section 497, CrPC, had been repealed through Ordinance LIV of 2001 on Oct 10, 2001, the ordinance had not been extended to Pata in terms of Article 247(3) of the Constitution, so there was no bar on the court to release the accused on bail.

The court observed that the material placed on record did not indicate that the delay in the conclusion of the trial could be attributed to the petitioners or that there was any hope of the conclusion of the trial in the near future, hence they were entitled to bail.