HYDERABAD, March 17: A wildlife official, Ghulam Ali Chhalgari, was taken into custody by the Sindh High Court for contempt of court but was later released upon furnishing a surety of Rs20,000.

Mr Justice Zia Pervez of the SHC later directed the additional registrar to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Mr Chhalgari.

The court also directed him to pay Rs10,000 as compensation within the next two days while earlier he had been directed to pay the same amount in three instalments to the petitioner, Wahid Bakhsh.

Earlier, the learned judge had ordered disciplinary action against Mr Chhalgari for illegally seizing a dozen Australian pet parrots from Wahid Bakhsh, a villager.

The deputy conservator, wildlife, Hussain Bux, clarified that there was no law against selling Australian pet birds/parrots and the petitioner should not be prevented from selling the same.

The orders came in response to a petition, filed by Wahid Bakhsh, which had been converted into a constitutional petition by the learned judge.

The petitioner had accused Mr Chhalgari of harassing him and seized Australian parrots on Jan 31, saying it was illegal to keep or sell the parrots without a license from the wildlife department.

Initially, the wildlife department official had denied having seized the petitioner’s parrots but later the additional advocate general, Sindh, Masood Noorani, filed a statement on behalf of the deputy conservator, stating that Mr Chhalgari had registered a First Offence Report against the petitioner on charges of illegal trapping and selling wild parrots.

The petitioner had denied the charges saying that he only dealt in Australian parrots, which were available in his farm.

The court had asked Iqbal Ahmed Khan, private secretary to the judge, to verify the facts in this regard.

After visiting the farm, Mr Khan confirmed to the court that the petitioner had been dealing in the sale and purchase of Australian parrots.