KARACHI: SBP told to mediate between banks and defaulters
KARACHI, Oct 8: The Sindh High Court advised the State Bank of Pakistan on Wednesday to provide for mediation between creditor banks and alleged defaulters in the loan recovery policy being formulated by it.
Recourse to alternative dispute resolution should help settle default cases expeditiously without resort to courts or use or threat of force by bank recovery teams, a division bench consisting of Justices Khilji Arif Hussain and Bin Yamin told SBP counsel Iqbal Haider when he stated that a uniform recovery policy was being worked out as desired by the court. A draft had been sent to the Pakistan Banking Council for its opinion and recommendations, Mr Haider informed the bench.
A division bench previously seized of a petition moved by a businessman against his harassment by bank recovery squads had directed the SBP to submit a list of defaulters of up to Rs5 million whose loans were written off and formulate a uniform policy to recover bad debts. The list was sought to ascertain the criteria for loan remissions but the production was later deferred and the SBP was asked to frame and submit a recovery policy for commercial banks.
According to petitioner Anwar Mahmood, he had availed credit card and personal loan facilities from several commercial banks. He claimed to have paid in regular instalments a substantial part of the principal amounts he owed to banks and said he only defaulted on marginal amounts when he suffered a loss on account of fraud committed by his business partner. He said he was entitled to debt relief.
The petitioner submitted through Advocates Tahmasap Razvi and Haider Imam Rizvi that he was always ready and willing to repay the outstanding debt but wanted some relief by way of rescheduling and readjustment in view of his business losses. The banks instead started sending recovery squads. He was threatened and insulted by the recovery squads at his residence and business premises. The police declined to register a complaint or provide him protection from the recovery men.
The bench adjourned the hearing to Nov 4 to enable the SBP to produce a recovery policy and extended the restraint order against the harassment or use of coercive measures against the petitioner.
Jirga system abolition
Provincial home secretary Arif Ahmed Khan, provincial police officer Sultan Salahuddin Babar Khattak and capital city police officer Wasim Ahmad, meanwhile, assured a division bench that efforts were being made to abolish the jirga system as ordered by the court in the Shazia case of 2004.
Fewer jirgas were being held for deciding criminal cases as a result of the measures adopted by the administration and the police, they said in their comments and affidavits filed through Advocate M. Ashraff Kazi before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Zafar Ahmad Khan Sherwani. However, they stated that few victims of the jirga system were prepared to come forward to lodge complaints against tribal elders.
The bench was hearing a petition moved by the Human Safety Foundation, a non-governmental organization, on behalf of Saira Jatoi and Islam Soomro, who were declared ‘karo kari’ for contracting a free-will marriage. They were detained by the jirga, which ‘dissolved’ their marriage. The couple was rescued by police and was brought to Karachi and lodged at the police headquarters.
Bringing on record the officers’ comments, the bench adjourned further proceedings to Oct 19 to enable Saira, who gave birth to a child on Tuesday, to attend the proceedings. The bench had already ordered adequate medical facilities but Advocate Shafqat Shah Masoomi complained that they were not getting due care.
The police officers said it would not be safe and proper to keep the couple at the police headquarters indefinitely because of its location. They should better be lodged at Darul Aman or any other government-run facility and Baitul Maal should be asked to defray the expenditure on their food and medical treatment. No funds were available with the police department to spend on their food and lodging.
KU petition allowed
Another division bench consisting of Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Khwaja Naveed Ahmed allowed a Karachi University petition as prayed and paved the way for early construction of the university’s institute of clinical psychology. A two-acre plot in Gulistan-i-Jauhar was allotted to the university for the institute early in 1988. A big chunk of the plot was claimed by a housing society as the university started construction work. The university obtained an interim injunction against the demolition of its boundary wall.
Meanwhile, the plot was transferred from the jurisdiction of the Karachi Building Control Authority to that of the Faisal Cantonment Board in 1995. The board raised objections to the construction plan as sanctioned and executed. The board, however, assured KU counsel Mohammad Tasnim and Asif Mujtaba that the regularization plan submitted by the university had finally been approved by it.
Rizvia Society polls
The bench dismissed a petition against the election of the managing committee of the Rizvia co-operative housing society scheduled for October 12. It upheld the list of voters drawn up by the co-operatives registrar and held that those who did not own a plot in the society were not entitled to vote. Since only plot-owning members would be eligible to vote, the ruling would effectively curtail the list from about 1,700 to 1,375.
The bench also observed that balloting could be conducted at the society’s new office at Gulzar-i-Hijri instead of its old office at Nazimabad. Advocates Amir Aziz Khan and Islam Hussain appeared for the petitioners and the respondents, respectively.
Auditors’ promotion
Another bench consisting of Justices Mohammad Saeed Athar and Qamaruddin Bohra gave the federal board of revenue another two months to process and finalize the promotion cases of 53 senior auditors of the sales tax department. No meeting of the departmental promotion committee would be held till the finalization of the petitioners’ promotion cases.
Advocate Mohammad Nawaz Shaikh submitted on behalf of the petitioners that their cases for promotion from grade 16 to 17 had pot been taken up despite a court order. He requested the FBR official responsible for non-compliance should be tried for contempt.
Bail cancelled
Justice Amir Hani Muslim, meanwhile, accepted the advocate-general’s plea to cancel the bail granted to assistant sub-inspector of police Rana Mohammad Tasnim.
Mst Nasima Khatoon lodged a complaint with the Landhi police in January 2007 that her daughter, Ramsha, had been kidnapped by the ASI. However, she could not produce any evidence to substantiate her allegation and the accused was granted bail after a few months. Ramsha escaped the alleged kidnapper’s custody late in 2007 and alleged that she was repeatedly raped by the official and his friends.
Assistant Advocate-General Adnan Karim Memon informed the bench that the accused was required in two other identical cases and being ‘a habitual offender’ required for investigation did not deserve the concession of bail. The judge cancelled the bail and the Landhi police took the accused into custody as he came out of the courtroom.