Murtaza Bhutto

SHC HEARS ARGUMENTS ON FIR REGISTRATION
KARACHI, Oct 22, 1996: The petition filed by two widows, Mrs Ghinwa
Bhutto and Badrunnisa Jatoi, came up for further hearing before the High
Court of Sindh on Tuesday.
The bench, comprising Chief Justice Mamoon Kazi and Justice Majida Rizvi,
heard the arguments of Abdul Hafeez Pirzada on the main petition for the
registration of the FIR in the alleged incident of murders in Clifton on Sept 20.
Earlier, K. M. Nadeem, additional advocate general, answering the queries of
the court made on Monday submitted that he was appearing in the petition
on behalf of the government of Sindh and the SHO of Clifton Police Station
(Respondents Nos. 1 & 2), who is a functionary of the police department
under the control of the government, and that his obligation as additional
advocate general are in accordance with the provisions of sub-Article 2 of
Article 140 of the Constitution, which defines the function of the office of the
advocate general to give advice to the provincial government on legal matters
and to perform such other duties of legal character as may be referred or
assigned to him by the provincial government.
He further made a statement that without prejudice to the preliminary
objections as to the maintainability of the petition on legal and constitutional
grounds, he is making an offer to the petitioners that the copy of their petition
along with their proposed FIR can be attached with the earlier two FIRs for
the purposes of investigations and that the petitioners and their witnesses
may join the investigations, but this offer was rejected by Abdul Hafeez
Pirzada, counsel for the petitioners, who insisted obtaining a decision for the
registration of separate FIR on own merits of the petition.
The other query as to the deposit of the investigation papers in the High
Court of the other two earlier FIRs and the miscellaneous applications of Mr
Pirzada to have an opportunity of looking into the same was also considered
by the court.
The court observed and inquired from K. M. Nadeem as to what harm would
be caused if such as opportunity is afforded to the petitioners' counsel and
such inspection could be made in presence of the representatives of the AG
office under the supervision of an high court official.
Murtaza Bhutto; Copyright © www.bhutto.org
102