KARACHI: Taking away the burden from the Sindh High Court, the Karachi city courts will be given additional powers, according to a bill passed during the Sindh Assembly session on Thursday.
The Sindh Civil Courts (Amendment) Bill was passed into law amidst opposition from a few lawmakers, who wanted to implement it across the province.
The bill was moved by Law Minister Ayaz Soomro, who said that under Sindh Civil Courts Ordinance 1962, Section 7, the civil courts of Karachi districts cannot try suits beyond the value of Rs3 million. As a result, all cases of greater values are passed on to the high court.
Since the property value of Karachi has increased manifold compared to the rest of the province, Soomro said, it is more efficient if the civil courts are empowered. “Not only cases will be disposed of at lower courts but burden of litigation will be reduced from Sindh High Court as well,” he said.
After the bill was passed, the lower courts will hear cases of up to Rs15 million.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Shoaib Bukhari supported the resolution and suggested the limit be fixed at Rs50 million. He said that there are more judges in lower courts so one can assume quicker trails.
National Peoples Party’s Arif Mustafa Jatoi opposed the resolution and said that it discriminates between the rural and urban areas. “It will be a violation of the fundamental rights of the constitution if the law is being implemented in only one of 23 districts. My humble request is that the resolution be amended with lesser power to the city courts.”
However, Senior Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq supported Soomro. “The value of property in terms of filing cases in lower courts is fixed in Karachi but since there is no restriction in other districts, the bill need not apply to the rest of Sindh,” he explained.
After some more arguments, the speaker put Jatoi’s amendment before the house, but it met with cries of “no”, so the bill was passed into law without the proposed amendments.
Sindh Fisheries Bill
Sindh Assembly also passed Fisheries (Amendment) Bill into law to abolish the contract system/lease for fishing in water bodies and introduced licences. In the Sindh Fisheries Ordinance, 1980, the words ‘fishermen’ and ‘water bodies’ were not present but now they have been included and fisheries have been replaced with “all public water bodies”.
Minister for Fisheries Zahid Bhurgari said that there were 1,209 water bodies in Sindh but fishermen, who are the actual custodians of fisheries, have no rights. Earlier the contract for most of the fishing lakes, streams and ponds was given at throwaway prices to influential people, who used to sell fish in the market earning up to Rs80 million. “There are around 500,000 fishermen in Sindh and with the introduction of the licensing system, they will be able to fish freely,” he said.
The minister went on to say that though it is difficult to get possession of water bodies from influential people but they will make district-level committees, comprising MPAs and MNAs, to look into the matter and help the local administration withdraw possession.
Other issues raised
Pakistan Muslim League - Functional MPA Nusrat Saher Abbasi diverted the attention of the house towards the law and order situation in the Khairpur Mirs. She said that more than 50 people have been kidnapped for ransom and 30 women were killed and raped.
Since the chief minister and the home minister were not present in the session, Minister for Works and Services Manzoor Wassan, who also belongs to the area, said: “I can not agree with the figures of kidnapping presented by Abbasi. Hardly five people have been kidnapped in our area and the figure is far less than the earlier government”.
Meanwhile, Muttahida Qaumi Movement MPA Tahir Qureshi raised the issue of extortion being collected from businessmen in Karachi. He said that some criminals distribute extortion notes in his constituency, Garden, and police are reluctant to protect the people. He said that the town police officer excused himself by saying “we don’t have enough security personnel to provide protection to businessmen”.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 14th, 2011.
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