High court dismisses bail plea of accused in rape case

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has recalled the pre-arrest bail of a man and dismissed his bail application in a rape case.

Applicant Arshan had filed an application for obtaining bail in the rape case registered against him at the Korangi Industrial Area police station. According to the prosecution, the applicant had raped a woman after the false promise of marrying her, but he later refused to fulfil his promise.

The applicant’s counsel said his client was willing to marry the woman, and had also filed a suit for the restoration of conjugal rights in the family court. The complainant’s counsel said the applicant was a deceiver who had committed a heinous crime, and requested the court to dismiss the bail application.

The counsel said the applicant had promised to marry the victim, but he refused to do so at the last moment while married to another woman. A single SHC bench headed by Justice Adnanul Karim Memon said bail before arrest is meant to protect innocent citizens involved in heinous crimes without any mala fide intentions.

The court said that no grounds exist in the applicant’s favour to show that he was booked in the case with mala fide intention. The bench said that no case of bail is made out, recalling the interim pre-arrest bail granted to the applicant and dismissing the bail.

MDA gets notice

The SHC also issued notices to the Malir Development Authority (MDA) and others on a contempt-of-court application filed by the allottees of Taiser Town.

Mohammad Rafiq and others said in their contempt application that the high court had ordered that no coercive action was to be taken against the petitioners in respect of the allottees of Taiser Town.

They said that 95 per cent of the allottees have paid the full instalments of their plots, but the MDA had issued an impugned letter on July 12 last year with regard to the cancellation of the plots of allottees who had not paid the outstanding dues.

Their counsel claimed that as many as 25,000 plots have been encroached upon by land grabbers under the patronage of MDA officials, and no development work has been carried out by the authority in any part of Taiser Town.

He said the MDA is bent upon cancelling the plots of the petitioners instead of doing development work and removing encroachments. The MDA has collected Rs9 billion from the balloting of the plots but no development work has been started in the balloted sector, he added.

He also said the MDA’s land director had issued notices to the allottees with regard to the cancellation of their plots despite the court order that no coercive action was to be taken against them. An SHC division bench headed by Justice Arshad Hussain Khan issued notices to the alleged contemners and the MDA, telling them to file their comments in the next hearing.