Two federal secretaries at risk of contempt

IHC seeks report from interior and finance ministries

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday hinted at initiating contempt of court proceedings against two federal secretaries for failing to implement its orders in a case of enforced disappearance.

This was suggested by a single-member bench of the IHC, comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah, as he heard a contempt of court application filed by the wife of enforced disappearance victim, Islamabad-based Information Technology (IT) expert Sajid Mehmood. The court had previously directed the government to provide monthly compensation to the victim’s family to the tune of Rs100,000 apart from imposing fines worth Rs0.1 million each on the former Islamabad Police Inspector General (IGP) Khalid Khattak, former defence secretary General (retd) Zameerul Hasan Shah, and the ex-Islamabad deputy commissioner (DC) Mushtaq. The Kohsar police Station House Officer (SHO) Qaiser Niazi had also been fined Rs0.3 million for failing to recover the missing citizen.

During Monday’s proceeding, the court ordered the federal secretaries of finance and interior to submit their reports regarding the progress made on implementing the court’s orders.

The court asked why shouldn’t action be initiated against senior officers apart from sending the matter to the federal cabinet.

CJ Minallah further ordered the secretary of the federal human rights ministry to assign a representative to appear before the court at the next hearing of the case.

Appearing on behalf of the federal government Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Syed Tayyab Shah, told the court that the verdict issued in the case by the single-member bench has been suspended following an intra-court appeal.

However, the petitioner’s counsel, Umar Gillani, told the court that a clause regarding payment of compensation to the victim’s family until his recovery had been upheld by the appeals bench.

The court then summoned a report on the matter and adjourned further hearings until December 7.

At the last hearing of the case on October 19, CJ Minallah had said that secretaries of interior and finance will be summoned if the family of the missing IT expert was not compensated as per the court orders.

But just eight days later on October 27, when a two-member, larger bench of the IHC, comprising Justice Amir Farooq and Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzaib, heard an appeal filed by the government, the senior officials of three ministries and departments escaped heavy fines imposed on them by a court for failing to retrieve a resident of the federal capital who has been missing for nearly four years.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2020.