KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday adjourned to Thursday the hearing of the applications against the provincial government’s decision to remove Inspector General of Police A.D. Khowaja after partly hearing the arguments of the applicant’s counsel.

Headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, a two-judge bench also maintained its earlier interim order restraining Mr Khowaja’s removal from the post of IGP.

Civil rights campaigners had approached the SHC for contempt proceedings against the provincial government after it surrendered the services of Mr Khowaja to the federal government and appointed Additional IG Sardar Abdul Majeed Dasti, a grade-21 officer, as acting IGP on April 1.

The applicants’ counsel would carry on with his submission on the next date of hearing, resuming at 11am.

On April 6, the bench had passed an interim order directing IGP Khowaja to continue his duty as provincial police chief though his services were surrendered to the federal government by the Sindh government on March 31.

During the previous hearing, Advocate General Zamir Ghumro referred to the court’s previous order and submitted that the provincial cabinet had met and approved the order surrendering services of Mr Khowaja and the notification appointing Sardar Abdul Majeed Dasti as acting IGP.

He had also filed the statement of provincial services secretary with the minutes of the cabinet meeting.

In his reply to the contempt application, the services secretary submitted that the applicants were overstretching the intent and import of the SHC order of Dec 28, 2016 with mala fide intention to divest the provincial government of its exclusive right of appointing police chief.

He said Mr Khowaja was a junior officer in the seniority of officers of the Police Service of Pakistan and was serving in the provincial government on an own-pay-and-scale (OPS) basis. The provincial services secretary stated that the provincial government relieved Mr Khowaja as it intended to appoint one of the senior officers as IGP in compliance with the order of the Supreme Court that had deprecated appointments on an OPS basis.

Missing constable case

The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed the provincial police and Rangers’ chiefs and others to file their replies on a petition seeking whereabouts of a police constable missing since December 2012.

Headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui, the bench also put the federal and provincial governments’ lawyers on notice and adjourned the hearing to a date to be later pronounced by the court’s office.

The petition was filed by Shamim Begum, wife of Mir Ahmed, who stated that her husband went missing on Dec 10, 2012 and since then there was no clue to his whereabouts as the law enforcement agencies had been unable to trace him.

She submitted in the petition that she had got registered an FIR about her husband’s disappearance at the Civil Lines police station and sent applications to high-ups to seek information about him but to no avail.

The woman stated that she kept receiving her husband’s salary for 11 months after he went missing, but later the police department stopped the salary, leaving the family in the lurch.

She said she had four children and it had become very hard for her to bring them up without money.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2017