KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the managing director of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) to ensure that the remains and offal of all sacrificed animals to be slaughtered on Eid are collected, transported and disposed of by the evening of each day of the festival.

The two-judge bench headed by Justice Khadim Hussain M. Shaikh directed the SSWMB MD to make the metropolis clean and furnish a comprehensive progress report showing the result at the next hearing.

When the bench took up a petition about unhygienic conditions in the city for hearing, a deputy director appeared on the behalf of the MD and submitted a waste management plan for Eidul Azha.

He contended that the SSWMB had made a comprehensive plan to ensure cleanliness and efficient collection, transportation and disposal of animal waste and offal and such an operation would be monitored through a comprehensive system to eliminate lapses.

He further submitted that the campaign would be managed in such a manner that areas were made clean by the evening of each day of the event and he undertook to file a comprehensive report to that effect.

Manslaughter, cheating offences recommended against doctors in woman’s death case

The bench also observed that apparently, due to failure of the sewage system and non-disposal of garbage, many areas of the city had been inundated under the rainwater mixed with sewage and garbage, posing a high health risk of communicable diseases for the affected people coupled with the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic.

The bench expressed dissatisfaction over the replies filed by the chairman, municipal commissioner and director for sanitation of the district municipal corporation-Central and said they were vague in nature, lacking material particulars.

The bench directed them to file comprehensive comments by next hearing.

An additional advocate general of Sindh sought time to file comments on behalf of the chief secretary while counsel for the Karachi mayor also requested for time to file a reply.

Therefore, the Karachi mayor, the SSWMB MD and the department concerned were directed to immediately remove the filthy rainwater and garbage from the affected areas of the city on a war footing and to furnish comprehensive reports on the next hearing, it concluded.

Manslaughter, cheating offences

A prosecutor has recommended in his scrutiny note incorporation of relevant sections of the Pakistan Penal Code for manslaughter and cheating against the doctors of a private medical centre for alleged negligence in a surgery which claimed the life of a woman.

Initially, Dr Shoaib Kausar, his wife Dr Seema, Dr Fariha and Dr Zulma Majid of Al-Hadeed Medical Centre, located in Gulshan-i-Hadeed, have been booked for the offence of unintentional murder for allegedly committing negligence during the caesarean section of Afshan Tanveer in February last year.

Later, the patient died at the Liaquat National Hospital after a second surgery and two doctors of the LNH — Dr Haleema Hashim and Dr Shiraz-ur-Rehman — were also booked.

The investigating officer in the charge sheet said that a medical board in his report cleared both the surgeries and found no negligence on the part of the doctors, adding that the Sindh Healthcare Commission (SHCC) had imposed a fine of Rs400,000 on the owners of the medical centre, Dr Shoaib and his wife, and Rs50,000 each on Dr Fariha and Dr Zulma for their negligence and not referring the patient to a major hospital in time.

The IO charge-sheeted the four doctors of Al-Hadeed Medical Centre on the basis of the report of the SHCC under Section 319 (unintentional murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code and removed Section 316 of the PPC from the case. The IO did not charge sheet the two doctors of the LNH for want of evidence and said the SHCC had also cleared them.

Deputy district public prosecutor Bhuro Mal in his scrutiny note observed that as per the SHCC report, Dr Shoaib and his wife were not surgeons and they used to deceive public at large and also did the same to the complainant of the case.

He further said that Dr Zulma did not conduct the operation herself and left the patient at the mercy of MBBS Dr Shoaib, who was supposed to refer the patient to a major hospital, but he conducted the surgery with other unqualified doctors to make money in the name of caesarean section and the patient’s condition deteriorated after the operation and later she died.

In light of the admitted facts and available corroborative evidence, the prosecutor said that all the doctors working at Al-Hadeed Medical Centre with their common intention had committed an unlawful act of surgery by deceiving the complainant, the husband of the deceased, and were liable to charges for Section 321 (qatl bis sabab) and 420 (cheating) of the PPC.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2020