SHC CJ wants 676 pending pre-arrest bail cases settled

Sindh’s top judge on Saturday observed that 676 cases of pre-arrest bail are pending before the Sindh High Court (SHC) principal seat, the Sukkur bench and the circuit courts at Larkana and Hyderabad, expressing hope that they will be decided within two weeks.

The SHC chief justice, Justice Ahmed Ali M Shaikh, was informed by the member of the court’s inspection team that there is a backlog of as many as 676 pre-arrest bail cases that are pending at the high court’s principal seat, the Sukkur bench and the Hyderabad and Larkana circuit courts.

The chief justice expressed hope that the cases that are pending before the judges of the SHC, with the exception of the matters of the National Accountability Bureau, will be decided within a fortnight, discouraging the tendency of adjournments.

The province’s top judge said that in the presence of reasonable and cogent grounds, the requests of adjournments should be acceded to fixing them on the next working day.

Justice Shaikh also directed the registrar and the additional registrar of the bench at Sukkur and the circuit courts at Hyderabad and Larkana to place the observations before the judges through their respective courts’ associates.

Two days ago the Supreme Court had dismissed the pre-arrest bail plea of a suspect in a murder and attempt to murder case, observing that the accused could not be released on interim bail for several years.

Hearing the petition of Irshad Ali Shah against the dismissal of the protective bail application by the high court, a two-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa observed that there was no justification to release the accused involved in the murder

case on protective bail for several years.

The court observed that it was shocking that the accused remained on protective bail for seven years and his protective bail application took five years to be decided.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that his client obtained pre-arrest bail from the high court in 2012, but after six years of protective bail the high court dismissed the pre-arrest bail application in 2018. At this the petitioner filed an application in the SC.

The counsel requested the top court’s Karachi registry to release the petitioner on bail so that he could defend himself against the allegations before the trial court.

According to the prosecution, the applicant was involved in a murder and attempt to murder incident over a land dispute that registered by the Hyderabad police.