PHOTO: EXPRESS
A two-member bench, comprising Justice Omar Sial and Justice Zulfiqar Ali Sangi, ordered prisoner Akbar Minhas' counsel, Asad Ashfaq, to approach the Supreme Court on the matter, while hearing his bail application in a reference filed in an accountability court.
Ashfaq told the court that besides testing positive for Covid-19, 73-year-old Minhas had been diagnosed with multiple ailments, including asthma and chronic bronchitis, by the jail authorities themselves.
"He is clearly extremely frail and in need of urgent medical attention and rehabilitative care," he contended, adding that Central Jail, Karachi, where Minhas was imprisoned, was overcrowded as well.
The court asked why Ashfaq had not approached the SC in the first place, to which the latter said that the outbreak of coronavirus in the prison was a recent development.
"As many as 400 cases of inmates contracting the virus have been reported over the past few days," he said, claiming that in the light of the situation, jail authorities, too, had requested the accountability court to grant bail to Minhas. "But accountability courts are not authorised to grant bail and hence, I had to approach the SHC," he explained.
Stating that a case pertaining to the release of prisoners amid the pandemic was being heard by the SC, the bench directed Ashfaq to approach the apex court on the matter. The court declined the plea to shift Minhas to a private facility for treatment, while ordering jail authorities to ensure all possible medical assistance to the petitioner.
Akbar was arrested in July, 2017, for alleged misappropriation of government land. He was diagnosed with Covid-19 on May 21.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 6th, 2020.
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