Thar commission’s report to be submitted in court on March 17

KARACHI:

Sindh High Court (SHC) directed on Friday the provincial law officer to submit a report of the three-member commission formed to investigate causes of deaths in drought-hit areas of Thar.

The report is due by March 17 as the provincial law officer said the commission, formed recently by the provincial government, will prepare it within three weeks.

The court was hearing identical petitions seeking a probe into the recent deaths in Tharparkar. Headed by SHC chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah, the division bench adjourned the hearing till March 17, when the lawyer for a non-government organisation will also argue on the maintainability of their petition.

The bench had previously sought comments from the provincial law officer to the petitioners' proposal to form an independent judicial commission to investigate the situation in Thar.

During Friday's proceedings, additional advocate-general Mustafa Mahesar produced a copy of the notification of the three-member commission appointed by the provincial government. The commission, headed by Justice (retd) Ghulam Sarwar Korai, has been constituted to look into the situation in Thar, he added.

The law officer said the Supreme Court had disposed of suo motu proceeding on measures to mitigate the situation in drought-hit areas in view of the report submitted by the provincial government. Mahesar once again questioned the maintainability of the petition, filed jointly by the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum and human rights activist Javed Iqbal Burki, arguing that they are not directly aggrieved parties.

He pleaded, however, the disposal of the same following the formation of the judicial commission. At the next hearing, the bench will hear arguments on maintainability from the petitioners' lawyer, Faisal Siddiqui, who was not present on Friday.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2016.