KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday issued notices to the secretary religious affairs, director general Haj and others on a petition against the Haj policy 2019.

The two-judge bench of SHC headed by Mohammad Ali Mazhar put all the respondents as well as the deputy attorney general on notice for Feb 20.

The petitioner Rao Nasir Ali Jahangir challenged the recently announced Haj policy under which the cost of performing the pilgrimage under the government scheme has become costlier by over 60 per cent.

The lawyer for the petitioner Nadeem Shaikh contended that the government has unnecessarily increased the cost of Haj as compared to last year and maintained that the government never provided the alleged subsidy to pilgrims.

Petitioner claims Haj operation is a very profitable exercise for government departments

The counsel further argued that Haj operation was not carried out on government expenses, but in fact it was a very profitable exercise for the government departments concerned.

He further contended that the Haj operation was providing billions of rupees profit to the government in the shape of bank profit and interest since after the announcement of Haj policy, the banks start accepting applications and the amount remains in banks for months. After balloting, the unsuccessful citizens have to wait months for their refund, which provides profit and interest.

The petitioner submitted that after the cabinet approved the policy, the information minister said that the expense for Haj as compared to last year has been increased and now people from southern and northern areas of the country will have to pay Rs436,000 and Rs426,000 respectively for Haj under the government scheme.

A total of 184,210 people will perform Haj this year; 107,000 will be accommodated through government schemes and around 76,000 people through private schemes, he added.

The petitioner submitted that the government has made it difficult for the people to offer the religious duty by increasing the expenses as an amount of Rs156,975 has been increased for each pilgrim.

While impleading the secretary religious affairs, secretary parliamentary affairs and director general Haj as respondents, he asked the court to direct the respondents to review the Haj policy 2019 as per the actual expenditure and also file a detailed report in this regard.

The petitioner also pleaded for a restraining order for the respondents by granting permanent injunction from implementation of the Haj policy 2019 till the final decision of the petition.

Conviction set aside

The SHC on Thursday set aside a death sentence awarded to two men by the trial court in a murder case.

An antiterrorism court had sentenced Fazal Hussain and Fayyaz alias Fizu to death after finding them guilty of killing police constable Ashfaq in 2013 in a Lyari locality.

However, the convicts had challenged the capital punishment before the SHC and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case, a two-judge appellant bench of SHC headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto allowed the appeal and set aside the verdict of trial court.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2019