LAHORE, March 11: The Lahore High Court issued notices to the respondent Punjab government and the inspector-general of prisons in a petition alleging that an ex-MPA was being held in the Kot Lakhpat jail after serving out his rigorous imprisonment in an accountability case.

Former PPP MPA Khalid Rauf of Fort Abbas, Bahawalpur, said in a petition filed through Advocate Chaudhry Fawad Ahmad that he was arrested by the National Accountability Bureau on Oct 8, 2000. In July he was convicted and sentenced to serve three years in jail and pay a fine of Rs700,000 or imprisonment for another year.

Under Section 382 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the petition said, his jail term should have been deemed to have commenced on the day of his arrest for trial. He became entitled to remissions from the same date, that is, Oct 8, 2000. He calculated that he completed his jail term on Feb 8, 2001, and since he failed to pay fine, underwent another year of imprisonment till Feb 8, 2002.

The Kot Lakhpat jail authorities, however, refused to release him when he approached them and confronted them with the legal position on Feb 9. They had received no instructions, they said.

The petition was heard by a division bench comprising Justices Tasadduq Husain Jilani and Mian Saqib Nisar. It ordered that notices be issued to the respondents.—Staff Reporter