PESHAWAR, Dec 2: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday issued a fresh notice to the Sindh government in a writ petition filed by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) challenging the suspension of the prison term of a convicted drug trafficker Amanullah Kundi by the NWFP government.

A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk and Justice Qaim Jan Khan ordered that a fresh notice should be issued through the chief secretary of the Sindh government.

The court had allowed the ANF in October to include the Sindh government as a respondent in the writ petition as Mr Kundi had been convicted in Karachi. When the bench took up for hearing the petition on Thursday it was informed by the court's official that the notice issued to the Sindh government could not be served.

Deputy Attorney General Salahuddin Khan appeared for the ANF and requested that a fresh notice be issued to the Sindh government as it was a party in the case. Mr Kundi, who is a former provincial minister, was released by the government on July 17 after suspension of his prison term by the government on medical grounds.

He had been sentenced to 25 years' rigorous imprisonment by a speedy trial court in Karachi in 1991 for attempting to smuggle 10kg of heroin. After his conviction he was shifted to the NWFP.

Mr Kundi remained an absconder for almost a decade after escaping from police custody from a hospital in D.I.Khan. Last year, he surrendered to the government and sought suspension of his prison term on medical grounds and on March 24 his remaining prison term was suspended by the provincial government under section 401 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

While the Anti-Narcotics Force had challenged the notification, the Peshawar High Court ordered the government on July 17 not to release Mr Kundi. However, Mr Kundi, who was in a hospital in D.I. Khan, left the hospital and the order of the high court could not be implemented. The NWFP government has already raised objection to the filing of the writ petition, stating that the ANF had no locus standi to file it.