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PHC questions WAPDA for depriving man of quota job

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday observed that the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) were the most corrupt departments, as it heard a case of WAPDA denying a man his rightful quota job, while another bench declared that confining settled areas’ residents under Section 40 of the Frontier Crimes Regulations was illegal.

“The federal finance minister has admitted that WAPDA and PIA are the most corrupt departments and have become ‘white elephants’ for the nation,” Justice Dost Mohammad Khan remarked while hearing the case of Alam Khan, who moved the court against WAPDA for not appointing him on the quota for the sons of deceased WAPDA employees. He said the WAPDA authorities had recruited another person to his father’s seat, rather than hiring him according to the rules.

Meanwhile, a PHC bench ordered the assistant political agent (APA) of Bara to immediately release a prisoner confined under Section 40 of the Frontier Crimes Regulations on personal bail bonds.

The attorney of the Bara APA failed to justify the citizen’s confinement when the bench of Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and Justice Saleem Khan asked him to explain the situation. The attorney said accused Mushtaq was detained on the basis of suspicion, but the bench observed that a person could not be detained merely on the basis of suspicion.

Said Hakeem had filed a habeas corpus writ petition, challenging the confinement of his brother, Mushtaq. The petitioner said the detainee was a resident of settled areas.

Last Friday, another division bench of the PHC served notices to the NWFP advocate general and the Bara APA in the writ petition. The PHC ordered both respondents to appear during the hearing on June 20 to clear their positions in the case. In addition, the bench had also directed the Peshawar Central Prison superintendent to produce record of the detainee in the next hearing.

The petitioner said that Khasadars had picked up Mushtaq under 40-FCR from the Sarband village on the Bara APA’s directives some three months ago. He said the detainee had later been shifted to Peshawar Central Prison.

The petitioner added that Mushtaq had not committed any punishable offence within the jurisdiction of any police station of the settled areas, not had he done anything illegal within the Bara APA’s jurisdiction. He requested the court to declare Mushtaq’s arrest unlawful.

The petitioner said Mushtaq’s family members had also forwarded applications to the Khyber Agency political agent, FCR commissioner and the NWFP home secretary, but no action had been taken on their part.

The petitioner’s counsel, Samiullah Afridi, argued that the APA had unlawfully detained a resident of settled areas. “The APA neither informed the area SHO, nor did he follow the required formalities as envisaged in Section 86-A of the Criminal Procedure Code,” he added. He requested the court to summon the Bara APA and to direct the Peshawar Central Prison authorities to produce records of the prisoner in the next hearing, so that the citizen’s arrest and subsequent transfer to the tribal areas could be explained. akhtar amin

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