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LAHORE, Nov 26: Advocate M.D. Tahir on Friday filed before the Lahore High Court an intra-court appeal challenging the vires of the rejection of his petition on the Ring Road plan.
A single bench comprising Justice Syed Jamshed Ali Shah had dismissed his writ petition in liminie on Wednesday. The intra-court appeal questioned the legality of the decision on the ground that the single bench did not apply judicial mind and hardly took into consideration the interest of the people, particularly the residents of Bund Road, who were going to be hit by the revised plan of the Ring Road.
Seeking the single bench's decision to be declared as illegal, the advocate-petitioner submitted that the revised plan was going to displace some 600,000 population of eight localities on Bund Road in addition to causing the demolition of a number of commercial and industrial cites, graveyards, filling stations and mosques.
BAIL PLEA: The Federal Shariat Court on Friday held that bail was a legal concession available only to under-trial prisoners and not to those serving sentences after having been convicted by courts of law.
The court made the observation while rejecting the plea for bail by Abdus Saboor who was sentenced to one-year rigorous imprisonment for attempting to rape a teenaged girl in Khanpur tehsil.
Abdus Saboor, charged under sections 8 and 10 of the Hudood Ordinance, pleaded that he was awarded a lesser punishment and could claim bail as a matter of legal right. Assistant Advocate-General Raja Abdur Rahman opposed the plea on the grounds that lesser punishment was no ground for a convict to apply for bail as a legal right.
This right was available only to under-trial prisoners, and bail could also not be granted at a stage when the appeal against the conviction was yet to be decided by the court.
The AAG also submitted that the Khanpur additional district and sessions judge had awarded a lesser punishment to the appellant who was liable to a stringent penalty under sections 8 and 10 of the Hudood Ordinance and in view of the heinous crime Saboor had committed. The FSC rejected the bail application after the arguments. The appellant was charged with attempting to rape a 9th class student when she was on her way to school.
