KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday set aside the detention orders of 42 more workers of the Altaf Hussain-led Muttahida Qaumi Movement, commonly known as MQM-London, issued under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance for being without lawful authority.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry also ordered their release if they were not wanted in any other case and sought compliance report from the home secretary, provincial police officer and advocate general of Sindh.

The family members of the detainees had moved the SHC impugning the 30-day detention orders issued by the home department on the recommendation of the inspector general of police on different dates around mid-July under the MPO Ordinance.

The bench noted that since detention was for 30 days, the role of the review board constituted under Article 10 of the Constitution was not triggered.

The ground for detention in all in the petitions in question is identical as the IG has recommended their detention for allegedly instigating and provoking public to block roads and organise sit-ins which may disturb peace and tranquillity as well as can create serious law & order situations, it added.

The bench further said that earlier, it had also allowed a set of identical petitions challenging similar detention orders issued by the home secretary and the detention orders impugned in the present petitions were in the same series.

“Having already held that the Home Secretary, Government of Sindh had no lawful authority to issue detention orders under Section 3(1) of the MPO Ordinance, these petitions are also allowed. The impugned notices issued under the MPO Ordinance are declared without lawful authority and are set-aside”, it added.

A provincial law officer and an additional home secretary informed the bench that in 2020 the Sindh cabinet had delegated to the home secretary the power to issue detention orders under the MPO and thus impugned detention orders issued by the home secretary while exercising delegated power.

However, the bench noted that neither the provincial cabinet, nor the law officer seemed to be aware that Section 26 of the MPO, which had previously enabled delegation of powers and that too only to the district magistrate, had been omitted for the province of Sindh along with sub-section (2) of Section 3 vide Sindh Laws (Amendment) Ordinance 2001 and the court was not informed of any subsequent repeal or amendment.

Therefore, the cabinet could not have invoked Section 26 of the MPO Ordinance to delegate its powers under section 3(1) to the home secretary.

Earlier, the bench had also declared the detention orders of 17 workers of MQM-London and 10 activists of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement issued by the home secretary without lawful authority and ordered their release.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2023