KARACHI, April 11: A division bench of the Sindh High Court on Friday issued a notice to the Advocate-General for April 17, 2008 on petitions filed by the All Karachi Milk Retailers Association for fixing fresh milk prices and against imposition of fines and penalties on milk sellers by the city government.
The milk retailers association challenged the authority, power and jurisdiction of the city government over setting of a fixed price of milk submitting that the primary responsibility of fixing prices of essential food items is that of the provincial government.
The petitioner’s counsel, Naeemur Rehman, contended that the Price Control & Provision of Hoarding Act 1977 is nullity in the eyes of law as the applicable law is the Sindh Essential Commodities Price Control & Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act 2006 under which prices of essential food items can only be fixed by the Sindh government.
He said that before exercising powers under the 2006 Act, the city government, acting as a price controller, must consult all stakeholders involved in the milk selling business. After March 07, 2008 the situation has now been reversed by the city government as milk prices are fixed under the 1977 Act but respondents are setting penalties under the 2006 Act.
The milk retailers association prayed to the court to declare fixing of milk sale prices by the city government as discriminatory, all criminal prosecutions initiated and penalties imposed by the respondent to be void and quashed. It also prayed to the court to restrain the city government from fixing milk prices.
The division bench comprising Justices Azizullah M. Memon and Arshad Noor Khan issuing the notice to the AG adjourned the matter till April 17, 2008.—PPI
Contempt case
The Sindh High Court adjourned the hearing of a contempt case against a petitioner who snatched his minor son from his divorced wife at gunpoint here in September last year and removed him from the court’s jurisdiction in violation of judicial orders, adds Our Staff Reporter.
Petitioner Ghulam Mohammad Noori had approached the SHC in 2005 against a compromise order by a guardian court to entrust his then three-year-old son Abbas Noori to his divorced wife, Fiza Rizvi Noori. While the petition was pending, he took the law into his own hands, intercepted Fiza when she was bringing Abbas to her counsel’s office for a meeting with G.M. Noori in compliance with the court’s custody order and secured the child’s custody at gunpoint.
Fiza approached the high court, which asked G.M. Noori not to remove the child’s custody from its territorial jurisdiction and directed the authorities to put both G.M. Noori and Abbas on the exit control list. Noori, a dual Pakistani-US national, somehow succeeded in fleeing to the United States along with Abbas. Fiza moved for Abbas’s recovery and production and for attachment of G.M. Noori’s property and also for his prosecution for contempt of court.
Noori’s counsel, Advocate Kumail Shirazi, or the Federal Investigation Agency failed to explain how he fled to the US despite the court-ordered travel ban and cancellation of Abbas’s passport, also a dual national. The counsel, however, told the court that Noori and Abbas held the citizenship of the United States and that a US court had granted him the child’s custody. The court ordered attachment of Noori’s Defence bungalow and directed the federal interior ministry to get hold of the fugitive through Interpol.
The case came up before Justice Yasmin Abbasy on Friday and Fiza’s counsel, Advocates Adnan Karim and Ghulam Haider Shaikh, requested the court to order issuance of a red warrant for Noori’s arrest by Interpol. They said Abbas’s custody had illegally been removed from his mother’s legal guardianship.
Justice Abbasy asked Noori’s counsel to produce the relevant material, including a copy of the US court’s order, by April 28 and observed that she would like to dispose of the various applications in the case on or soon after that date. The counsel’s failure to produce the relevant documents would mean illegal removal of the child’s custody, the court observed.
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