SHC awards 3-year imprisonment to 10 for occupying orphans’ land

Court also imposes fine of Rs500,000 on each of the accused

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) accepted the appeal filed against the acquittal of accused in a case pertaining to corruption of funds and occupation of land and assets reserved for orphans, sentencing three years of imprisonment to all 10 accused.

Additionally, the court also imposed a fine of Rs500,000 on each of the accused who have been penalised in accordance with the law of eviction.

The verdict, which was reserved in the previous hearing by Justice Nazar Akbar, was announced by Justice Faheem Ahmed Siddiqui, on the request of the government.



Following the announcement of the verdict, court police arrested Talib Raza, Nasir Abbas, Shahid Hussain Jivani, Muhammad Abbas, Munawar Ali and Asif Zaidi from the court premises and transferred them to the high court lockup. The remaining four accused fled after the verdict was announced. The arrested are to be shifted to jail later.

The court also formed an 11-member team to run Markaz-e-Haqooq-e-Shariah, an organisation that works for the welfare of orphans. The appeal filed against the acquittal by the lower court maintained that the accused had taken control of Markaz-e-Haqooq-e-Shariah in 2010 after which an audit committee, formed by the high court, had unearthed corruption in the funds reserved for the orphans.

However, District and Sessions court had acquitted the accused of corruption charges. Following this, an appeal against their acquittal was filed in SHC.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 18^th, 2019.