Missing persons: Supreme Court perturbed over stalled payout to kin

Says the government has flouted several orders on the compensation of families.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court on Thursday lamented the fact that despite its several orders, the federal government had not allocated compensation to the kin of missing persons.

“The government is spending billions of rupees in different sectors and the court is also hearing these days a case of a Rs82 billion scam but no compensation has been allocated for the heirs of disappeared persons, who come from all over the country to pursue their cases in the apex court,” a three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, observed.

The court was hearing the case of a disappeared person Khawar Ali, whose wife, Saadia, had come from Bahawalnagar to pursue the case and had to face financial hardship.

Referring to Article 37 of the Constitution, Justice Jawwad said it was the duty of the state to provide inexpensive justice to its citizens.

“But despite our orders for allocation of 100,000 rupees each to the families of missing persons in the Attorney General for Pakistan Office, the government has not taken any action in this regard,” he observed.



“Our citizens should be dealt with in a dignified way but who will give answers to Saadia in this regard,” Justice Jawwad observed with sorrow.

Attorney General for Pakistan Salman Aslam Butt assured the bench that he would talk to the relevant ministries to sort out the matter.

The judge also questioned the non implementation of laws related to the protection of women in the country and asked how these laws would be beneficial for the poor applicants like the wife of the missing person.

Twenty-three-year-old Ali, working in a Chinese marketing company Tiens in Fort Abbas, was allegedly picked up by law enforcement agencies on June 2013 in front of several people. Five affidavits were also presented regarding his alleged enforced disappearance.

During the hearing, the DPO Punjab police Akhtar Ismail told the bench that they had requested the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) twice for nominating its representatives in the investigation of this case but they had not responded.

Upon this, the bench expressed its disappointment over the prevailing situation and observed that policies did not depend on the intelligence agencies in the probe of disappeared persons’ cases. It also asked a police official that he should take action against responsible persons, who did not cooperate during the course of the investigation in any case.

“The prime minster and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) chief minister are the concerned quarters in missing persons cases but both the federation and the province are not taking interest in this regard,” the judge observed.

Meanwhile, the bench stopped the defence ministry’s assistant director, legal, to appear before the court in disappeared persons cases due to his non competence to assist in the matter. “Mr Irfan, there is no need to come before the court as you are not able to assist us in missing persons case,” it remarked.

Referring the recent terror incidents, Justice Jawwad observed that these issues would be resolved, when everyone would start following the Constitution. The bench again summoned the attorney general and advocate general to appear before the court today (Friday).

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2014.