KARACHI, June 10: A division bench of the Sindh High Court suspended on Monday the operation of an order of a judge of an anti-terrorism court, dated June 1 and 6, pertaining to issuance of bailable warrants for the Home Secretary and his appearance before him.
The bench comprised Chief Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad and Justice Musheer Alam.
The Home Secretary, Brig Mukhtar Ahmed (retd), had filed a petition with the Sindh High Court against the orders of Judge Abdul Ghafoor Memon of the ATC-II who on June 6 had ordered the Sindh Home Secretary to appear before him on June 14 in connection with his application seeking withdrawal of the bailable warrants for his arrest.
When the matter came up, Raja Qureshi, the Advocate-General of Sindh, submitted that plausible and cogent reasons were given in writing to Judge Abdul Ghafoor Memon of the ATC-2 for not producing accused Dildar Hussain in court on June 1, as the competent authority had ordered his trial inside jail on account of the attack on a police van which was carrying him from jail to the court previously. A police constable was killed in the incident.
Mr Qureshi contended that the respondent judge did not pay any heed to the aforesaid explanation and ordered issuance of a bailable warrant against the Home Secretary (the petitioner).
The AG also drew the attention of the court to the bailable warrant and submitted that it was not issued in the name of any person, but in the official capacity of the petitioner, thereby violating section 75 of CrPC.
He termed the impugned orders illegal and void, and submitted that the respondent judge had referred to the petitioner as “delinquent accused” and had ordered him to be present in the court on June 14.
The SHC was not certain with regard to maintainability of this petition against a judicial officer. Furthermore, it observed that as required by law the province of Sindh had not been made a party in the maintainability of the petition. However, in view of the seriousness of the matter, the court ordered issuance of pre-admission notice to the respondent and adjourned the matter to June 17.
The judge had called the home secretary in connection with the notification of the trial of a double-murder case against two workers of the banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) on the premises of the Central Prison, Karachi.
The case against Dilawar Hussain alias Dildar, Shahzad Maqsood, Abdul Wasim and Mohammed Saeed Awan alias Saeed Kalia pertained to the murder of a muazzin and a watchman of Askari Imambargah on Feb 9 last year in Joharabad.
The jail authorities had earlier informed the court that the UTPs were not produced in the court as the provincial government had notified the trial of sectarian murder cases inside jails.
The provincial authorities had notified in early April the trial of the accused belonging to the banned SSP and the Tehrik-i-Jafferia Pakistan.
The decision to hold the jail trial of the banned sectarian parties was taken following an attack on a prisoners’ van carrying some sectarian workers, including Dildar, near Bohra Pir in the police limits of Nabi Bux. Two people, including constable Shakil, were killed in the attack.