Even for civilian employees of armed forces, military courts are the only option

Woman files second petition for detained husband, no military respondents turn up.

KARACHI: Only a military court can hear cases concerning employees of the armed forces, even their civilian staff, argued the federal government’s legal representative in the Sindh High Court on Wednesday.

The division bench of Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi was hearing a constitutional petition against the military authorities filed by a woman whose husband, a civilian employee, is facing a “court of inquiry”.

This is the second petition filed by Amina Aslam for her husband Muhammad Azhar.

The court cannot hear the instant petition in view of Sub Article 3 of Article 199 of the Constitution, submitted the Deputy Attorney General (DAG), questioning the maintainability of the petition.

The bench later asked Aslam’s lawyer to satisfy the court about the maintainability of the petition at the next hearing.

Aslam’s first petition (1552/2010) was disposed off earlier by the same bench with the direction to the military authorities to provide her a copy of the charges against her detained husband who is said to be facing a “court of inquiry” under the Army Act of 1952.

She filed a second petition after the orders of the court were not complied with by the respondents, including the GOC Malir (of HQ 25, Mechanised Division), 901 Field Security Section and the defence secretary.

Aslam maintains that her husband was working as a civilian supervisor of communications since 2007. He went for duty on May 12, 2010 and has been in custody since. ‘My husband is purely a civilian employee and not a uniformed person to be charged and tried under the Army Act,’ she maintains through her counsel Mehmood Habibullah.

When the case came up for hearing Wednesday no one appeared for the respondents except the DAG.

The judges noted that the respondents had been served notice to appear and had chosen to ignore the orders of the court.

Earlier, the court had ordered that Azhar be allowed to meet his family.

The DAG informed the bench that they were allowed to meet the detenue once in a month. The bench has put off the proceedings for two weeks and noted that none of the respondents appeared despite being served notice in the case as well as contempt-of-court notices.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2010.