KARACHI, Jan 18: A division bench consisting of Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Syed Pir Ali Shah of the Sindh High Court asked the city district government to pay up compensation to the people displaced by the Lyari Expressway in accordance with the law and court orders by January 29.
Thirty-five petitioners belonging to Rahmatia Colony, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, and other areas submitted through Advocate Ghulam Qadir Jatoi that the CDG official concerned had undertaken in May 2007 to satisfy the compensation claims after scrutiny of their documents. No action had, however, been taken to compensate them. The bench asked the respondent government to settle the claims by Jan 29.
Detainee’s identification parade
The anti-violent crime unit, which has allegedly been stalling on a parade to ascertain the identity of a person held by it as a brother of notorious dacoit Mashooq Brohi, requested the Sindh High Court on Friday to order an identification parade by a judicial magistrate or an anti-terrorism court.
Detainee Shahid Rind was produced by Central Prison authorities before a division bench comprising Justices Yasmin Abbasy and Farrukh Zia Shaikh following a fresh application moved by his uncle, Ghulam Hussain Rind, in his pending petition against Shahid’s unlawful confinement. Shahid was picked up while travelling in a bus from Hub to Karachi along with Ghulam Hussain in July 2007. According to police, Shahid had been moving about with an assumed name to conceal his identity. He was Bahadur Brohi, brother of Mashooq Brohi and son of Rasul Bux Brohi.
A division bench that heard the habeas corpus petition quashed in October an encounter case registered belatedly to justify his arrest and detention ordered his medical examination and a parade to ascertain his real identity and asked anti-corruption director A.D. Khwaja to hold a probe into the detainee’s allegations of torture and maltreatment. Ghulam Hussain again approached the court earlier this month alleging that the directions had not been complied with even after lapse of over three months.
An anti-corruption official said Shahid and his counsel did not co-operate in the probe against torture allegations. The police said he was not released because of an anti-terrorism court warrant against ‘Bahadur Brohi’ in a kidnapping-for-ransom case. An identification parade could not be held because the anti-terrorism court and the judicial magistrate were in disagreement over the question of jurisdiction. The police produced copies of four FIRs, all naming ‘Bahadur Brohi’ as an accused. They included two FIRs relating to the quashed encounter case and two alleging a kidnapping-for-ransom offence triable under the Anti-Terrorist Court. The police requested the bench to order an identification parade by a competent judicial authority.
The bench observed that ‘Bahadur Brohi’ had subsequently been named as an accused in the FIRs against ‘unknown’ culprits. In any case, the detainee produced before it claimed to be Shahid Rind. An identification parade should have been held and the detainee released as required by the court order of October 2007.
Appearing for the petitioner, Advocate Adnan Karim submitted that the detainee should have been freed after the quashment of the two FIRs against him. An identification parade was meant only to establish his identity and not to prolong his detention. To be a brother of a notorious offender was no crime in itself. He could have been re-arrested if he was found involved in any other case. He said he was not initially named in the ‘blind FIRs’. An identification parade at this stage when he has received wide publicity over television channels would be unfair as his face was now recognizable and any ‘planted’ witness could identify him as ‘Bahadur Brohi’.
The bench decided to hear detailed arguments on the legality of an identification parade and asked federal government standing counsel Sofia Saeed and Additional Advocate-General Haleema Khan to address arguments in reply to the contentions raised by Advocate Adnan Karim on January 24.
Over-charging by bank
Advocate Kiran Ahmed has filed a Rs40 million suit for declaration, permanent injunction and damages on behalf of her parents against a foreign commercial bank for ‘arbitrarily’ and inordinately enhancing the amount of monthly instalments due on a housing loan.
The plaintiffs, Mushtaq Ahmed and his wife, said they obtained a loan facility of Rs1.9 million to finance purchase of a house in Gulistan-i-Jauhar where they are putting up with their family. They were to pay instalments of Rs23,600 every month over a period of 12 years at the mark-up rate of 9.99 per cent. The house was mortgaged to the bank as security.
The repayment commenced in June 2004. After June 2005, the bank raised the rate of ‘interest’ to 14 per cent and demanded higher instalments. In 2006, the ‘interest’ rate was raised to 15.34 and the monthly instalment to Rs 29,000.
The bank warned them that the rate could be increased to as much as 22 per cent. When the debtors expressed their inability to pay the exorbitant instalments, the bank threatened to auction their property.
The plaintiff said the arbitrary recovery amounted to extortion. The loan was obtained for a basic need against a fixed mark-up rate, which could not be increased. In fact, with the repayment of their loan, their equity in the property should have gone up and the amount reduced. Besides, the loan was not interest-based and bank could not charge ‘interest’, least of all compound interest.
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