KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued pre-admission notices to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan leader Rauf Siddiqui and three others on an appeal challenging their acquittal in the Baldia factory arson case.

The state, through prosecutor general of Sindh, filed the appeal against the order of antiterrorism court of exonerating the accused.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha said that the appeal against acquittal of MQM-P leader and others had not been admitted to regular hearing.

“However, let pre-admission notice be served upon the respondents in the appeal against acquittal,” it added.

The bench in its order noted that there were six appellants impugning their conviction filed in 2020 and the same needed to be decided as most of 2020-21 appeals had been dealt with.

However, it further noted that there were around 400 prosecution witnesses in such appeals and the bench had discussed the best way of dealing with such matters with the lawyers for appellants and additional prosecutor general (APG).

One of the lawyers for an appellant informed the bench that he would prepare a document within a week whereby witnesses would be divided into categories, including those witnesses who linked the appellants with commissioning of offences, those present at the crime site, those who identified dead bodies, etc.

Thereafter, the same would be provided to the APG and he may add any material witnesses and thus, both parties will jointly file documents to enable the court to more expeditiously decide these appeals, the bench in its order said.

The lawyers for two appellants were found absent without any intimation and the bench issued them with direct notices as well as to special prosecutor of Rangers for Jan 17.

Former MQM sector in-charge Abdul Rehman aka Bhola and Zubair aka Chariya had been sentenced to death by an ATC in September 2020 for setting the multi-storey Ali Enterprises garment factory on fire in Baldia Town on September 11, 2012.

The trial court had also handed down life imprisonment to indusial unit manager Shahrukh Latif and three watchmen Fazal Ahmed, Arshad Mehmood and Mohammad Ali for facilitating the carnage, resulting in deaths of 264 people and injuring 60 others.

Moreover, the ATC had exonerated the then-provincial minister for commerce and industries Mr Siddiqui, Iqbal Adeel Khanum, Umar Hassan and Dr Abdul Sattar Khan for lack of evidence.

All the convicts through their lawyers approached the SHC against their conviction while the state challenged the acquittal of the four men.

The counsel for convicts argued that the impugned judgement was passed without application of judicial mind and without observing the principles laid down by the apex court and also did not appreciate the material contradictions in the prosecution evidence.

They alleged that people died due to the negligence of factory owners and the departments concerned since there was no emergency exit point in the industrial unit.

The counsel also argued that the prosecution had failed to examine the warehouse in-charge and produce any CCTV footage to prove its case, but the trial court remained unable to consider that aspect of the case, which made the case highly doubtful.

The state in its appeal argued that the impugned judgement in respect of acquitted accused/respondents suffered from illegality and many material irregularities.

It further asserted that the ATC had failed to consider the primarily issue involved in the case with respect of criminal liabilities and utilisation of the protection money in purchasing properties and passed the erroneous order of acquittal.

The state further contended that the acquittal was a result of non-reading of material evidence and misreading the documentary evidence collected and produced during the trial against the respondents.

It may be recalled that in August last year, the SHC had asked a prosecutor to seek instructions from the authorities concerned as to whether or not they wanted to file an appeal against the acquittal of four men in the case.

“This court after going through evidence, might itself take notice, if we consider that the appeal against the acquittal ought to have been filed, and so-called influential accused are being deliberately and intentionally shielded by the state,” it had observed.

Subsequently, in April, the state through the PG Sindh filed appeal against the acquittal.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2022