KARACHI, May 2: The anti-corruption establishment has the authority to proceed in a case between private parties provided a public servant was involved in it, the Supreme Court declared here on Friday.A petition for leave to appeal was filed by the state for expunction of observations of a single judge of the Sindh High Court holding a dispute between private parties in respect of private land could not be brought within the purview of the anti-corruption law and rules merely by involving a public official in it. The official involved in the case was a sub-registrar of properties. The state filed an appeal only for expunction of the observations.
Appearing for the state, Additional Advocate-General Fareed Ahmed Dayo submitted before a three-member bench at the SC’s registry here that the observation had wide implications and would render redundant the Sindh Inquiries and Anti-Corruption Act and rules.
The bench, which was headed by Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and consisted of Justices Zia Pervez and Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery, allowed the petition and the appeal and ordered that observations be expunged.
Petition dismissed
The bench dismissed a petition for leave to appeal against an order passed by Justice Munib Ahmed Khan of the SHC holding that an FIR could not be ordered to be registered in a case involving non-cognizable offences.
According to brief facts of the case, a complainant moved the Sukkur district and sessions judge for registration of an FIR against Raja Khan Mehar, former minister of state for production and brother of former chief minister Ali Mohammad Mehar, for maltreating and trying to kidnap him at a polling station of Adilpur, Ghotki, during the local council elections in 2006. Complainant Nur Hasan said he lodged a complaint with the SHO concerned, who referred him to the medico-legal officer. The medical officer reported seven minor bruises of non-cognizable nature. The DSJ referred his plea filed under Section 22-A of the criminal procedure code to an additional sessions judge, who ordered the SHO to register an FIR.
The order was challenged by the accused before the SHC’s Sukkur bench. It came up before Justice Munib Ahmed Khan, who allowed the appeal. He said no order could have been passed by the additional judge in view of the medical report that the injuries were not cognizable. Advocate Imdad Ali Awan appeared for Mr Mehar, Advocate Ghulam Qadir Jatoi for the complainant and AAG Fareed Dayo for the state.
Free-will marriage
A division bench comprising Justices Mrs Qaiser Iqbal and Mahmood Alam Rizvi allowed a couple who had married of their free will to live together without being harassed. Petitioner Sana of Landhi said she had married Tehzir but her mother got a kidnapping case registered against her husband. The bench summoned the New Town police official investigating the case. He said the couple had not been harassed but Tehzir was required for recording of his statement.
The bench asked the IO to record the petitioner’s statement.
Plea against OGDC plan
A division bench of the Sindh High Court disposed of a petition submitted by the shareholders of the Oil & Gas Development Corporation on the request of the petitioners.
The bench comprising Justice Azizullah Memon and Justice Khalid Ali Z. Kazi was told on Friday that the OGDC board of directors had on April 28, 2008 resolved to set up LPG extraction plants in accordance with the LPG production and distribution policy-2006, as amended on February 25, 2008 by the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet and would withdraw expression of interest (EoI) for the installation of LPG extraction plants on “build, own and operate (BOT)” basis.
Submitting a written statement on behalf of the petitioners, Abdul Wahid and Zafar Mahmood Malik, senior advocate Abdul Hafeez Pirzada said that the petition filed against the OGDC plan to outsource the LPG extraction from the corporation’s gas fields to private sector on a BOT basis had borne fruits, and prayed to the court to dispose of the petition.
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