HYDERABAD, June 14: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday took serious notice of under-trial prisoners’ complaints and ordered IG Sindh prisons, home secretary, sessions’ judges and superintendents of jails to solve the prisoners’ problems with regard to delay in trial, unavailability of medicines and unnecessary transfer from one jail to the other.

Justice Amir Hani Muslim examined around two dozen complaints filed by under-trail prisoners (UTPs) languishing in different jails of the province and passed specific orders on each of them.

He directed the superintendents of central prisons of Sanghar and Mirpurkhas to appear in court on June 20 and superintendents of district jails of Badin and Dadu to appear on June 27.

The judge directed the Hyderabad jail chief to ensure that surgery of a convict, Jaro, son of Ramzan Chandio, was conducted on June 14 and a report was submitted to the court.

He took notice of the complaint of Asif Zaheer, who was not produced in the Anti-Terrorism Court in Karachi for 22 months due to some administrative problem. "Administrative difficulties can not defeat the right of such UTPs," the judge remarked and ordered "let the home secretary take immediate steps to produce the UTP in ATC Karachi within four weeks from today."The court ordered the additional district and sessions’ judge-I to hold an inquiry into the allegations against Shahsawar, a convict in PIA fokker hijacking case in Hyderabad.

The judge directed the superintendent of Hyderabad jail to ensure that all the convicts were allowed to offer prayers in their rooms and remarked that permission by a sessions judge was required to keep a prisoner in isolation ward. In the absence of permission the superintendent could not impose isolation, he said.

He ordered transfer of UTP Peer Bux back to Nawabshah from Hyderabad within a week and ordered IG prisons to pass appropriate orders on the application of a condemned prisoner, Mohammad Asif, for shifting him to Karachi within two weeks.

Justice Muslim ordered additional sessions’ judge-I to conclude UTP Mohammad Ameen’s trial within eight weeks and asked Nara prison chief to ensure UTP Ghulam Abbas was transferred back to Nawabshah within two weeks.

He sought comments from additional sessions’ judge-II about UTP Qadir Bux, who claimed that his trial was not being processed because of influence of rival party, and ordered the jail superintendent not to assign any work to the UTP which was in violation of jail manual.

The judge directed the additional sessions’ judge-VI to conclude UTP Shahzad’s trial within two months and sought comments from additional sessions’ judge-I as to why judgement in UTP Khan Mohammad’s case was not announced.

He ordered jail superintendent to take UTP Shaukat to the medical superintendent of Liaquat University Hospital to have him examined, and directed concerned additional sessions judge-I to conclude Namoos Gul’s trial within eight weeks.

He sought comments from additional sessions’ judge of Jamshoro as to why cases against Imam Bux were not being proceeded in court and also explain as to why he was not accepting surety from UTP Bashir Ahmed.

The judge asked the additional sessions’ judge-IV to proceed with UTP Abdul Rasheed’s case by expediting the process under section 512 Cr.PC.

Central Jail Hyderabad Superintendent Muzaffar Alam Siddiqui, Dadu District Jail Superintendent Manzoor Hussain, Badin District Jail Superintendent Shuja Haider Baig Mirza, Nara jail Superintendent Ghulam Murtaza Shaikh, Mirpurkhas District Jail superintendent Ziaur Rehman and Sanghar District Jail superintendent Yousuf Masih attended the court.