KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday expressed displeasure over the absence of senior superintendent of police of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) and summoned him with the investigating officers on a petition seeking the recovery of missing children.

The two-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro also expressed dissatisfaction on a police report and directed the officials to submit complete record about the missing children.

The directives came on a petition filed by the Roshni Research and Development Welfare in 2012 regarding children who went missing in different parts of Karachi. The petitioner contended that police were not properly investigating these cases which resulted in many preventable deaths.

When the petition came up for hearing on Wednesday, the bench took exception to the absence of the ACLC SSP, who is the focal person on missing children, and directed him to appear with all the IOs investigating these cases on July 11.

The court also returned an insufficient report of police and observed that it would not accept any report until the children’s recovery.

Justice Kalhoro said that directives had been issued around six months ago for the recovery of the children, but apparently police did nothing and were deliberately committing negligence.

Parents of the missing children also said that police had been demanding bribes for the recovery and supporting the accused persons.

On a previous hearing, the ACLC SSP through a report informed the bench that FIRs had been registered in seven cases, while four children had returned to their homes on their own while the family of one of the missing child was residing in Sialkot and efforts were being made to establish contact with them.

The SHC, which had heard the case several time during the past six years, time and again directed the provincial government and police to take measures for the children’s recovery.

Petitions about May 12 mayhem

The same bench on Wednesday referred petitions seeking judicial inquiry into May 12 mayhem to the chief justice since a petitioner sought constitution of a larger bench.

The SHC appointed advocates Faisal Siddiqui and Shahab Sarki as amicus curiae to assist the court in the matter. The court was informed that previously a larger bench of the high court was hearing the May 12 petitions.

However, the proceedings could not be concluded due to the imposition of a provisional constitutional order (PCO) in November 2007 and later the matter was disposed of by another bench of the PCO, and now the matter was pending since then for revisiting the court orders.

Last month, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had also sought the record of applications pending before the SHC regarding the May 12 mayhem.

Around 50 people were killed and over 100 wounded on May 12, 2007 in attacks on rallies by different political parties and legal fraternity which were going to receive the then deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry at Karachi airport to attend a lawyers’ gathering, but he was forced to fly back to Islamabad after nine hours’ restricted stay at the airport

Order reserved in school fee case

A three-judge bench of the SHC headed by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi on Wednesday reserved its order on a set of petitions against increases in tuition fees by private schools.

The large bench reserved the order for a date to be fixed by the court’s office after hearing arguments from the counsel for petitioners, respondents and an additional advocate general.

The parents of students last year had challenged the tuition fee increases in the four private schools in violation of the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinance, 2001.

They said their children were studying at private schools situated in KDA, Gulistan-i-Jauhar and Qasimabad, and the schools’ administrations had increased the tuition fee by 12pc to 60pc in violation of the ordinance.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2018