KARACHI: The Sindh High Court threw out on Monday a plea of Pakistan Peoples Party Karachi president and former federal minister Dr Asim Hussain for undergoing spinal surgery abroad.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Junaid Ghaffar had on May 26 reserved the judgement on his constitutional petitions and miscellaneous applications seeking removal of his name from the Exit Control List and return of his passports.

Dr Hussain’s passports were ordered to be retained by the SHC Nazir (court official) when he was granted bail on March 3 by the high court.

Headed by Justice Hasan Azhar Rizvi, a division bench issued the verdict of Justice Ghaffar’s bench that dismissed his plea for removal of his name from the ECL and return of his passports mainly on the ground that the orders passed in a constitutional petition could not be challenged and/or modified through a separate petition.

The bench concluded in its judgement: “In the given facts and circumstances of this case, petition bearing No. D2229/2017 and both CMA Nos. 11486/2017 in CP No. D-1696/2016 and CMA No. 11484/2017 in CP No. D-7597/2015 are dismissed.”

Dr Hussain, a close aide to PPP co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari, was released from a sub-jail set up for him at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre on March 31 after a little over 19 months in detention.

He was granted bail in two corruption references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for allegedly causing huge losses to the national exchequer through corrupt practices.

Dr Hussain, who was serving as chairman of the Sindh Higher Education Commission, was picked up by Rangers on Aug 26, 2015, for his alleged involvement in offences falling within the ambit of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

He remained in Rangers’ preventive detention for 90 days before being handed over to police in a case registered against him and others for allegedly treating and harbouring suspected terrorists, ‘political’ militants and gangsters at his hospital at the request of Rauf Siddiqui, Wasim Akhtar and Saleem Shahzad of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pak Sarzameen Party president Anis Kaimkhani, PPP’s Abdul Qadir Patel and Pasban’s Usman Moazzam.

NAB later obtained his custody for interrogation and investigation into his alleged involvement in corruption. One of the two corruption cases pertained to causing a loss of Rs462.5 billion by allegedly misusing his powers, while the other related to award of processing gas from five fields in lower Sindh without conducting an open auction, incurring a loss of Rs17.34bn to the national exchequer.

The bench had reserved the verdict after hearing the concluding arguments of Dr Hussain’s counsel barrister Latif Khosa, the deputy attorney general and the NAB prosecutor.

In his arguments, Mr Khosa had said his client’s name had been placed on the ECL with mala fide intentions, as there were no solid grounds for the move. He claimed that the federal government intended to deprive Dr Hussain of availing medical treatment abroad.

At an earlier hearing, Mr Khosa had told the bench that his client “may lose his life if he does not undergo spinal surgery abroad”.

Opposing the argument, the federal government had informed the SHC that Dr Hussain had been barred from leaving the country because of his involvement in multibillion-rupee corruption cases.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2017