HYDERABAD, March 1: The Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, on Tuesday issued a notice to the DCO (Nawabshah) to appear in person before the court on March 11 in response to a petition filed by three transporters , claiming that they were not being allowed to ply their buses on a particular route.

The petitioners, including Muhammad Bashir, Gul Bahar and Mohammad Nawaz, cited Ali Mohammad, Zanwar Bashir Ahmed, Zulfikar Ali, Manzoor Ali, Mumtaz Ali and Mohammad Qasim, the secretary of the District Regional Transport Authority, as respondents.

According to the petitioners, they run transport services from Jam Saheb to Nawabshah. The then secretary of the DRTA, Sukkur, whose jurisdiction included Nawabshah, prepared a private time table for bus/mini bus services without informing them and the time table did not mention a bus of petitioner Bashir.

The petitioners approached the secretary for including the bus according to route permits but he said that under the devolution plan, time table pertaining to Nawabshah had to be prepared by the Nawabshah DRTA.

Subsequently, the petitioners approached the secretary of the DRTA, Nawabshah. They alleged that being in collusion with private respondents, he was not ready to prepare time table according to route permit and was keeping them on false promises.

They claimed that they submitted applications to the Nawabshah secretary on December 17 and 20, 2003, seeking permission to ply their buses/mini buses on the route but he did not grant it.

They alleged that private respondents were not allowing them to ply the vehicles on the route and requested the court to direct the official to prepare the time table according to the law.

Additional Advocate-General Sindh Masood Noorani had told the court on Feb 24 that the secretary had proposed to appoint arbitrator for settling the matter between the parties within 30 days.

In his comments, the Nawabshah secretary said that it was incorrect to say that a private time table had been issued by the Sukkur secretary. He stated that the petitioners and the respondents had presented applications for revising the time schedule which was under consideration.

He said that the time schedule the petitioners referred to was not a time table but a list of vehicles of which permits had been issued by the Sukkur secretary.