The council’s Muhammad Hanif Kashmiri filed a constitutional petition in the Sindh High Court which was heard by the bench headed by Chief Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany.
The SBC has more than 15,000 advocates on its rolls across Sindh. But unlike members of the Punjab Bar Council, these advocates do not have free healthcare. The petitioner submitted that since October 2005 the Punjab government has allowed free medical facilities to members of the Punjab Bar Council and their dependents at all teaching hospitals, special institutions, children’s hospitals, district headquarter and tehsil headquarter hospitals. The Punjab health secretary issued a notification permitting these benefits on the orders of the then chief minister.
However, when the Sindh Bar Council brought up free healthcare with the Sindh chief minister in March 2006 and subsequently with other top government brass, it made no headway. About a year later, in Dec 2007, however, the chief minister issued a notification, allowing healthcare for the advocates but confined to three hospitals - Liaquat Medical College Hospital, Hyderabad, Nawabshah Medical College Hospital and Chandka Medical College Hospital in Larkana. But this limited cover deprived an overwhelming majority of advocates, maintained Muneer A Malik, counsel for the petitioner. The matter was raised with the authorities again, following which an order was issued on July 7, 2010 to the EDO Health of Sukkur only, the counsel stated. He prayed the court to direct the Sindh health secretary to send this order to all relevant officials across Sindh.
The bench put both the respondents, the federal law secretary and Sindh health secretary, on notice for Dec 15.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 26th, 2010.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ