KARACHI, July 2: The Sindh High Court on Monday issued notices to the law secretary, additional chief secretary (home), provincial police chief and others in a petition seeking a ban on the manufacture and sale of firecrackers on the occasion of Shab-i-Baraat.

A division bench headed by Justice Munib Akhtar also issued a notice to the provincial law officer and directed the respondents to file their respective comments by July 4, the next date of hearing.

The petition was filed by Rana Faizul Hasan, the secretary-general of the United Human Rights Commission, who impleaded the chief secretary, provincial law minister through law secretary, additional chief secretary (home), the Karachi commissioner and the administrator of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation as respondents.

He submitted in the petition that the life of people in the city became miserable for three to four days before and on the occasion of the religious event as the whole city echoed with firecrackers.

The petitioner said that the menace of firecrackers had become a constant mental torture for people and the authorities had failed to curb it.

He prayed to the court to direct the respondents to restrain the manufacture, sale and use of firecrackers with immediate effect.

Conviction set aside

A division bench headed by Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui acquitted six appellant officials of the Market Committee of the New Sabzi Mandi, including its administrator, who were sentenced to five years in jail for allotting 413 shops/plots in violation of the provincial government’s policy.

The six appellants — Muhammad Akbar Zardari, administrator, Abdur Rasheed Shaikh, secretary, Ghulam Mohammad Memon and Aziz-ur-Rehman Shaikh, in charge of the allotment cell of the market committee, and two other officials Muhammad Ayaz Khan and Khadim Hussain — were convicted by Judge Syed Kausar Bukhari of the Accountability Court No 2 on March 29 this year.

Later, the convicts, represented by Advocates Syed Mahmood Alam Razvi, Obaid-ur-Rahman and Zakir Leghari, moved the appeals against their respective conviction in the SHC.

The reference against the market committee officials was filed in 2005 by the National Accountability Bureau for their alleged involvement in misappropriation of funds and fake allotment orders of shops in New Sabzi Mandi in 2004.

It was alleged that the accused issued fake allotment orders of shops as members of the market committee and caused losses of Rs17 million to the provincial exchequer.

The bench observed that the prosecution did not produce a single witness to demonstrate which allotments were made by the accused persons in violation of the terms and conditions prescribed in the official policy.

The bench observed: “It is significant and mind boggling that the prosecution has based their charge on two documents i.e. notification and decision of standing committee.

“However, both these documents were neither exhibited before the trial court nor were produced in any way, hence the core documents by which the allegation can be proved are missing from the record”.

“After bare examination of the evidence, we thus reached to a conclusion that the prosecution has miserably failed to prove charge against the appellants and consequently the appeals of the appellants are allowed and the appellants are acquitted from the case/reference No. 05/2005. They shall be released forthwith, if not required to be detained in any other case,” the judgment concluded.