KARACHI, April 27: A division bench of the Sindh High Court issued notices to the attorney-general and the advocate-general on Tuesday in a writ petition challenging denial of jail remissions to accountability court convicts.

Petitioner Iqbal Turabi was arrested in July 2001 and convicted by a Karachi accountability court in May 2002. He was sentenced to serve 10 years' imprisonment and pay a fine of Rs 95 million.

The court, however, gave him the benefit of remission under section 382-B of the code of criminal procedure, which meant that the period of pre-trial and pre-sentence detention undergone by him would be counted as part of his substantive jail term. The high court maintained his conviction and sentence but reduced the fine to Rs 25 million.

Meanwhile, a new provision, section 10-D, was incorporated in the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance, 1999, in November 2002 to deny remissions under any law to the NAB convicts. The provincial home department issued notifications and orders giving effect to the amendment and the Karachi central prison authorities withheld the remissions granted under section 401 of CrPC.

Challenging the validity of section 10-D, particularly the retrospective effect given to it, and the notifications issued under it, the petitioner submitted through Advocate Kamran Shaikh that it sought to control and restrict the president's constitutional power to grant pardon, reprieve and respite and to remit, suspend or commute any sentence awarded by any court.

No penal provision could be given retrospective effect under the Constitution. The petitioner has been convicted for corruption and convicts under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947, were entitled to remissions. The new provision was also, therefore, discriminatory.

Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan briefly submitted on Tuesday that insofar as the president's power under Article 45 was concerned, it could not be controlled by a subordinate legislation.

The power was discretionary and the president could exercise it at his discretion. The president was well within his authority to deny remissions to the NAB convicts. NAB deputy prosecutor-general Anwar Tariq conceded that retrospective effect could not be given to section 10-D of the NAB Ordinance.

The bench, which consisted of Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and M. Afzal Soomro, asked the jail authorities to place all relevant notifications under which remissions were allowed to prisoners ever since the conviction of the petitioner in May 2002.

Since important questions of law involving interpretation of constitutional provisions is involved in the petition, notices were issued to the principal law officers of the federal and provincial governments for May 14.

They were particularly asked to address arguments on the question of discrimination and whether exclusion of all NAB convicts from remission provisions amount to a reasonable classification under Article 25 of the Constitution.

PRODUCTION ORDERED: Justice Zawwar Hussain Jaffery of High Court of Sindh on Tuesday adjourned till May 5 hearing of a constitutional petition filed by Saadia Qureshi seeking custody of her baby boy, Humza Qureshi, aged 18 months, adds APP.