Khudayar Mohla –
ISLAMABAD, (TLTP): While staying recent order relating to bail facility extended to more than 400 inmates of Adyala Jail Rawalpindi, involved in minor crimes, the top court on Monday asked Islamabad High Court and all the executive authorities to cease the facility till further order of the Supreme Court.
In March 20, converting a letter of a prisoner, housed in the Jail, into petition, Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) Justice Athar Minallah has ordered to grant bail to 400 under trial prisoners (UTP) on the grounds that they could not be kept in jail when the country was facing threat of coronavirus outbreak and there was a national calamity.
Challenging the IHC’s March 20 order through his counsel Nayyab Gardazi before Supreme Court on March 27 the petitioner termed over 400 criminals release in an unprecedented and unconstitutional manner at the cost and expense of the constitutional right of a complainant in the respective FIRs.
On Monday, after hearing the criminal petition on Monday, a five-member bench led by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, and comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Mainkhel, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed issued notices to respondents in the matter for April 01.
The respondents include; Niaz Ullah Khan Niazi, Advocate General, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Tariq Mehmood Khokhar, Additional Attorney General, Amer Ali Ahmed, Chief Commissioner, ICT, Hamza Shafqat, Deputy Commissioner, ICT, Waqar-ud-Din Syyid, Deputy Inspector General of Police, ICT, Secretary Health, ICT, Inspector General (Prisons), ICT, Home Secretaries of all the Provinces as well as the remaining Advocate Generals in addition to the Prosecutor Generals of all the four provinces, Inspector General of Police, Gilgit-Baltistan and Prosecutor Generals NAB and ANF.
Appointing advocate Supreme Court Sheikh Zameer Hussain as amicus curiae in the matter, the bench said in its order, “Let the matter be fixed day after tomorrow. Until then, no further order shall be passed by any of the High Courts and by any of the Provincial Governments/ICT/Gilgit-Baltistan of releasing the prisoners from the jails. If any order has been passed regarding release of the prisoners and not given effect or implemented till now, the same shall not be acted upon until further orders of this Court”.
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