KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday dir­­ec­ted the executive director of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) to appear before it along with a compliance report about construction of a separate jail ward at the health facility on Dec 15.

The two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha observed that since the SHC order to set up a jail ward at JPMC for the treatment of prisoners was passed around 10 years ago, it was expected that such order would have been complied with.

“On the next date of hearing, Ms Seemin Jamali, executive director, JPMC shall be present before this court and file a compliance report as to what steps have been taken since 16.09.2010 to construct a separate ward to accommodate and secure under trial prisoners or convicted prisoners who are sent to the JPMC for treatment”, the bench in its order said.

In 2010, a division bench had directed the federal health secretary, then executive director of JPMC as well as the provincial and jail authorities to build a jail ward of a reasonable size, which it said was the need of the day, in JPMC without further loss of time.

Missing children

The same bench on Monday directed the police to use all possible efforts for the recovery of 14 missing children.

When the bench took up a petition about missing children, the police contended that they have managed to trace out one more missing child, Manzoor Hussain, and also produced him in court.

The bench observed that 14 children were still missing and the police report said that considerable efforts were being made to locate the remaining children.

The bench directed the police to continue its best efforts and trace out more children prior to the next hearing and submit further progress report on Feb 3.

The petition was filed by a non-governmental organization in 2012 seeking court directives to the provincial police for considering the missing children’s cases, who went missing from different parts of Karachi, a cognizable offence and registering FIRs in this regard as well as proper investigation.

KPT employees

Another division of SHC on Monday set aside notification of Karachi Port Trust (KPT) regarding termination of around 1,200 employees hired between June 9, 2012 and November 21, 2013.

The two-judge bench headed by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi allowed the petitions for reasons to be recorded later.

The petitioners Asghar Baig and others have challenged the show-cause notice issued to them by the KPT management and submitted that they were appointed and regularised in different departments of KPT after fulfilling all legal formalities.

The petitioners submitted that in show-cause notices it was stated that the appointments made during said period were based on political influence, nepotism, cronyism and in sheer disregard of a free and transparent process.

The counsel for petitioners argued that the respondents were bent upon terminating the services of the employees without giving them the opportunity of a fair hearing.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2020