PESHAWAR, July 28: The Peshawar High Court on Friday ordered the central prison authorities to release an elderly man in accordance with the remission announced by the president.

A two-member bench, comprising Justice Ijaz Afzal Khan and Justice Jehanzeb Raheem, allowed a writ petition filed by a prisoner, Shah Hussain, stating that he was 66 years old and the presidential remission announced on Independence Day in 2005 had not been extended to him.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf had announced remissions for different categories of prisoners. According to that order, every convicted prisoner who had attained 65 years of age and had completed one-third of his or her prison term was entitled to be released.

The chairman of an NGO ‘Voice of Prisoners’, Noor Alam Khan, appeared on behalf of the petitioner and argued that according to the national identity card of Mr Hussain he was now 66.

He stated that according to the reports of three medical boards, the petitioner’s age was between 61 and 66 years.

He referred to a letter sent by the Department of Forensic Science, Khyber Medical College, to the chairman of the standing medical board.

The petitioner, a resident of Charkhakhel in Peshawar, was arrested by the Anti-Narcotics Force in Karachi in 1996. He was charged with carrying 116kg of charas. He was convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment with fine of Rs200,000.

A few years ago, the petitioner was shifted to the Peshawar central prison. After the presidential order, the petitioner requested the prison officials to release him but they declined to do so. He filed an application under Section 22-A of the Criminal Procedure Code before the district and sessions judge who ordered determination of his age through a standing medical board.

However, the prison authorities declined to accept the board’s findings. Finally, he had filed a writ petition before the high court.