KARACHI, Nov 12: The Sindh High Court disposed of nine identical petitions agitating harassment of alleged consumer loan defaulters by bank recovery teams with a direction to the respondent commercial banks to adopt legal means for recovery of outstanding amounts.
Chief executives of the banks would be held responsible for any violation of law by the recovery teams, a division bench comprising Justices Mrs Qaiser Iqbal and Syed Mahmood Alam Rizvi said in the disposal orders. The petitioners said the recovery teams visited their houses and offices and threatened and humiliated them. The bench asked the respondent banks to initiate appropriate legal proceedings for recovery instead of taking the law into their own hands.
The State Bank of Pakistan has, meanwhile, submitted a recovery policy framework to be followed by all banks and financial institutions for recovering outstanding amounts due on personal loans in another division bench consisting of Justices Khilji Arif Hussain and Syed Pir Ali Shah. The petition in which the SBP was asked to lay down a uniform recovery policy in accordance with the law is still pending. An interim order has been passed in the petition restraining the banks from employing extra-legal coercive methods.
According to the guidelines, the observance of which would be monitored by the SBP, 14 days’ notice containing the statement of account and other necessary information would be served on the alleged defaulters. The customers would be contacted at given addresses and phone numbers and at other places and numbers only if they are not available. All calls shall be duly recorded and the recovery teams would not use abusive language. The recovery agencies hired by the banks would be registered with the Pakistan Banking Council, would employ qualified and trained staff and would work under a code of conduct.
Tessori’s plea
Another division bench comprising Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Ghulam Dastgir A. Shahani issued notices to the advocate-general and the respondents in a petition moved by Kamran Khan Tessori’s mother for his treatment in jail in accordance with the law.
The petition, filed by Advocate Khwaja Naveed Ahmed, alleged that Kamran had been involved in eight criminal cases at the behest of Hanif Merchant, with whom he had a civil dispute, and ‘some political persons’, who were out to deprive him of the 80 acres of land allotted to him for his ‘gold city’ project. He was being pressurized to settle his dispute with Merchant at the Jackson police station or the Central Prison under the aegis of the Keamari town police officer.
The petitioner also complained that her son was being kept incommunicado in an isolated cell and she and other members of the Tessori family were not being allowed to see him. He was also not being permitted to have home-cooked meal. He was a leading bullion and jewellery trader and tax-payer, yet he was not being allowed better class in the prison. The petitioner prayed that she and other relatives should be allowed to meet him; that he should be taken out of solitary confinement and allowed home-cooked meals; that he should be shifted to better class in jail; and that he should not be moved out of Karachi.
Housemaid’s recovery
Justice Munib Ahmed Khan gave the Darakhshan station house officer another day to recover housemaid Razia, allegedly being held by her employer, Zafreen Irfan, at her Defence residence.
Razia’s mother, Rasheeda Bibi, addressed a complaint to the chief justice, which was converted by him into a petition and assigned to Justice M.A. Khan. Rasheeda alleged that the employer forcibly married her daughter, who had been working for her for 17 years, with her cook. Razia escaped with her one-and-a-half-year-old son to her sister’s house at Malir but the police recovered her and handed her back to her employer, who accused her of stealing valuables and then fleeing to her sister’s house.
The Darakhshan SHO, who was asked to recover and produce Razia on Wednesday, informed the court that she was not present at the address given by the complainant. The court gave him another day for ascertaining Razia’s whereabouts and recovering her.
Petition against KESC
The division bench headed by the CJ, meanwhile, found maintainable a petition filed by civil rights campaigner Iqbal Kazmi against the functioning of the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation. Dismissing a petition moved by former Karachi nazim Niamatullah Khan as being hit by a Supreme Court verdict that petitions under Article 199 were not competent against the privately-run KESC, the bench observed that petitioner Kazmi had raised important constitutional and legal points that required consideration.
The petitioner says that under the Constitution, it was for the provincial governments to distribute electric power among the consumers. He also says that the Electricity Act, 1910, the KESC could not resort to unscheduled load-shedding. The petitioner was asked to implead the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) as a respondent and file an amended petition within a week.
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