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KARACHI, May 27: The Sindh High Court asked its nazir on Thursday to ensure that a petitioner mother was allowed to see her 18-month-old son, who is in the custody of her estranged husband.
Saadia Qureshi, who has come from the United States to sue for the custody of her child, had alleged that she was humiliated and insulted by her husband, Khurram Shehzad Qureshi, and her in- laws when she went to see her son, Hamza, at their residence in pursuance of a court order. She feared that she might be mistreated if she visited her in-laws again to see her child.
The court ordered that the nazir would be present at the meetings so that nothing untoward happened. She would deposit Rs5,000 as fee. Khurram was present on Thursday and submitted a rejoinder to the petition through his counsel, M. Ilyas Khan. Further proceedings were adjourned to Friday morning.
Advocates Khwaja Naveed Ahmed and Naheeda Mehboob Elahi made their submissions on behalf of Saadia. They said the couple had agreed to settle in the United States, where both of them lived and worked, at the time of their marriage.
They came on a visit to Karachi earlier this year and Khurram changed his mind. He sent her back to the US, promising to return with Hamza within 15 days. He stayed on and she had to come to Karachi to seek Hamza's custody.
Khurram said in his rejoinder that he had got a job in Lahore and could live an equally comfortable life there with his family. After the 9/11 blasts, Muslims and Pakistanis were discriminated against in the US.
He and Saadia had come to Karachi to settle in Pakistan but she retracted and pressed him to go back. He denied that Saadia was maltreated by him or by his sister or parents when she came to meet Hamza.
The petitioner's counsel argued that the couple had their own residence in the United States while they had none in Lahore or Karachi. Khurram lived in his paternal aunt's house in Lahore and according to the appointment letter produced by him, he had been hired by a private company for Rs 20,000 per month.
He and Saadia, the counsel said, were both more gainfully employed in the United States, were earning thousands of dollars and had brighter prospects.
NOTICE TO NAB: The Sindh High Court issued notices to the National Accountability Bureau for June 1 in a writ petition alleging that the bureau had failed to comply with a court order to consider his plea bargain.
Petitioner Abdul Razzak Shaikh submitted that he had moved the SHC against his arrest and custody by the bureau in a case involving his late father, a contractor who carried out construction work at the Khairpur University new campus.
He received only Rs390,326 after his death and was prepared to refund the amount by way of plea bargain. A division bench comprising Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and Mohammad Afzal Soomro disposed of his petition on March 30 with a direction to the bureau to calculate the exact amount paid to the petitioner within two weeks and release him if the amount was paid.
