KARACHI, Jan 6: The Sindh High Court asked Sindh National Front Chairman Mumtaz Ali Bhutto on Tuesday to answer the advocate-general’s allegation that the medical certificate produced by him was fabricated and adjourned the hearing of the petition seeking the quashment of a criminal case against him to Jan 22.
AG Mohammad Yusuf Leghari and Assistant AG Adnan Karim Memon pointed out that the certificate annexed to the petition by the petitioner son of the accused, Ali Haider Bhutto, carried the date of January 3, 2008, on its top while heart specialist Azhar Masood Farooqui signed it below on Jan 3, 2009. If it was issued on Jan 3, 2008, it had no validity and if the latter date was presumed to be correct, the accused was in police custody on that date and had not been produced before the cardiologist for a check-up. The certificate was thus ‘faked’, the law officers maintained.
They reserved the right to bring a new charge against the accused and also lodge a complaint against his petitioner son. Justices Gulzar Ahmed and Syed Pir Ali Shah, who constituted the division bench hearing the petition, asked Advocate Abid S. Zuberi, the petitioner’s counsel, to explain the discrepancy in dates.
It said an explanation from Dr Azhar Masood Farooqui would be sought after hearing Mr Zuberi. It was on the basis of the medical certificate that the court had ordered the police to shift Mumtaz Ali Bhutto to a cardio-vascular hospital.
Unnar bail order
A Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices Zia Pervez and Sarmad Jalal Osmany, meanwhile, adjourned the prosecution’s plea for cancellation of the bail granted to former provincial minister Altaf Hussain Unnar by the high court in an anti-terrorism case being tried in Hyderabad.
Prosecutor-General Shahadat Awan submitted in the memorandum of appeal that there was a prima case registered under the Anti-Terrorist Act against the accused. He was booked for firing at the car of Dr Azra Pechoho, PPP MNA, during a by-poll at Jamshoro in 2006. The offence he had been charged with was non-bailable.
Advocate Rasheed A. Razvi was present for Mr Unnar but the hearing was adjourned to Jan 19 at the request of the two sides.
Defendants restrained
The Sindh High Court on Tuesday restrained the city government and a private defendant from creating third party interest in respect of a lawsuit filed in a property case in Clifton area, adds PPI.
The complainant, Tauqia Rizvi, moved the high court against the director of land management and utilisation of the CDGK, and Syed Mohammad Ali Naqvi.
She submitted that she purchased a plot (No.F-10) measuring 1,990 square yards in Old Clifton area from Mr Naqvi in 2000 for $450,000.
She paid $350,000 to the defendant as a first instalment and later made the remaining payment.
She approached the director of land management and utilisation of the CDGK for transferring the property in her name in January 2002. The director told her that the property earlier mortgaged by a bank was retained by the legal heirs of its owner, the late Ali Azhar Naqvi.
The complainant stated that the property was neither mortgaged by the bank nor its owner was a guarantor in any case. But CDGK officials deliberately avoided transferring the property in her name.
She prayed to the court to direct the director of the CDGK land management and utilisation department to transfer the property in her name and grant an injunction. The Sindh High Court judge, Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, after initial hearing issued notices to the defendants and directed them not to create any third party interest.
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