Parents directed to not pay a penny more than what’s fixed

Court warns private schools against harassing parents and disallowing students from taking exams

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday directed parents not to pay extra tuition fee other than the amount that has been fixed and sought for the detailed fee structure from school owners by January 14. A two-member bench, headed by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi also directed the school managements to not harass parents and students and warned against disallowing students from taking exams.

The bench was hearing a contempt plea filed by parents against school owners for their failure to implement court's orders. The private schools submitted their fee records in the court but the bench objected over the records and said that these were the statements of the monthly fee and there were no records regarding the amount being collected in the name of tuition fee. Private schools' counsel sought a day's time to submit the detailed records. The counsel for The City School informed the court that they had already decreased the fee by 20%. The court inquired about the progress on the orders given by SC to not increase fee by more than 5%, to which the parents' counsel said that in response to their plea, the school owners presented two types of fee structures in court.



Justice Abbasi remarked that the fee structures will be checked by FIA. It seems that the school owners don't want to comply with the court orders.  The petitioners' counsel informed the court that Sindh government and private schools have submitted wrong facts and figures before the court pertaining to the fess structure.

The court bashed the private school owners for not taking the orders of SC and court proceedings seriously. The court said that the parents should not worry as we will send auditors to schools to check the facts and figures after which we will take the decision.

Private schools' counsel said that they have no problem in the implementation of court orders.

He said that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had taken away the records from schools and that their hardware should be returned back to them so they could continue their work.

The bench remarked that how could it override an order of the apex court.

Missing children

The SHC on Thursday expressed its displeasure over the absence of FIA director-general (DG), in the hearing of petitions seeking recovery of 19 missing children, despite the court's orders and notice issued in the last hearing.

A two-member bench, headed by Justice Naimatullah Phulpoto, heard the case in which the bench directed FIA DG to appear on next hearing "at any cost". The court had issued a notice in the last hearing to the FIA after a question was raised about the possibility of missing children being used in human trafficking.

The bench remarked that there were apprehensions among the families due to the non-recovery of their missing children.

Crimes deputy inspector-general (DIG) informed the court that they had formed a team on the orders of Sindh inspector-general (IG).

The Roshni Helpline, petitioner, said that only one out of 19 missing children has been recovered as yet. The recovered child was presented before the court and the police officials informed the bench that the child was recovered from Chippa shelter home. Due to the negligence of Investigation Officer (IO) of Garden Police, the child had been in shelter home for many days.

The bench directed the Sindh IG to look into the matter personally. It also directed the FIA and police to carry out joint efforts for the recovery of other missing children.  The court again ordered the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) DIG Amin Yusufzai, who is heading a committee on this matter, to make efforts for the recovery of missing children, and use modern technologies and show progress at the next hearing on January 17.

The court also expressed annoyance at police for not arresting the accused involved in sexually harassing a child and directed the police officials to arrest the accused immediately.

The petition was filed by Roshni Research and Development Welfare in 2012 seeking court directives for the police to give missing children cases priority. The petition alleged that cases of missing children were not properly investigated by the police which resulted in many preventable deaths.

Gas shortage 

The SHC on Thursday sought reply from registrar, Sessions judges and other respondents regarding a plea submitted by the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) to resolve pending cases of billing and gas theft in the province.  The court has directed the respondents to submit their replies till January 15.

Asim Iqbal, advocate of the SSGC, informed the court that Sui gas was being stolen in several areas of the province. Due to the theft of gas and delay in bill payments by consumers, the province is facing gas shortage. He said that the national exchequer suffered losses of millions of rupees due to the gas theft. The counsel said that sessions judges of every district should expedite the pending cases against theft of gas and delay in bill payment.

Minister's fake degree

The SHC on Thursday ordered the petitioner's lawyer to give his arguments on January 16 about the maintainability of the plea filed against Provincial Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla's fake degree.

A two-member bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Agha KK, heard the plea against the fake degree of Chawla. The petition against Chawla was filed by Abdul Qayoom which maintained that Chawla's date of birth is 1974 according to his documents, but the person Mukesh Kumar Pansari, whose degree has been submitted in Election Commission of Pakistan, was born in year 1980. Chawla passed his matric exams in 1992 and has not acquired further education after that while Mukesh Kumar Pansari completed his matriculation in 1996 from Sajawal. According to the documents, Chawla had been using Jamshoro University's degree of Mukesh Kumar Pansari through forgery, while the latter who acquired his Masters' degree from Jamshoro University is employed in a bank in Karachi. Therefore, Chawla should be disqualified, read the petition.



Money laundering

The SHC sought arguments over the bail pleas of Sarfaraz Merchant, a major witness in the money laundering case against the founder of MQM, and three other accused on January 14.

A two-member bench, headed by Justice Iqbal Kalhoro, heard the case in which the court inquired the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) prosecutor about the reference filed against the accused. NAB prosecutor said that the reference against the accused had been filed and it was under trial in court while two accused are at large.

Khawaja Shams Islam submitted the power of attorney for accused Syed Umar. The court ordered the counsels of accused to give arguments on the next hearing and adjourned the hearing. According to NAB, Sarfaraz Merchant and others were also accused of illegal allotment of 25 acres of land.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2018.