CJ takes up 40-year-old case today | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

CJ takes up 40-year-old case today

By Ghulam Dastageer

PESHAWAR: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Wednesday took up the application of an elderly woman who said she had been waiting for the court verdict in a dowry case for the last four decades.

The 70-year-old woman, Saeeda, told the chief justice that her case had been pending for the last 40 years. The chief justice asked her to appear in his court with her counsel today (Thursday).

The woman said her husband had given her five kanal of commercial land in dowry on Kohat Road in Peshawar but after his death, her brothers-in-law occupied the land. She said it was in 1970 that she filed a case for the recovery of her dowry in a civil court.

Saeeda said she had got the verdict in the case in her favour in civil court and later in the sessions’ court in 2006. “But in 2008, the PHC decided the case in favour of my brothers-in-law, which prompted me to file an appeal in the SC, but to date the case hasn’t been fixed for hearing,” she complained.

In another case, the Supreme Court served notice on a woman clerk working in the Pakistan Post Office in a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) appeal for making millions of rupees assets beyond her known means of income. The NAB appeal seeks enhancement of sentence in the case. Heading a division bench along with Justice Ijaz Ahmad, the chief justice served notice on the junior clerk, Nuzhat Begum, in the case.

During hearing of the case, the chief justice observed that the law would equally treat men and women and that the court would not show leniency in corruption-related cases. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said he could not make bank balance after serving as a judge for 20 years but the junior clerk of the General Post Office made millions of rupees assets and property within two years of service.

The NAB counsel informed the court that the accountability court had awarded seven-year sentence and imposed a fine of Rs 13.9 million but the Peshawar High Court reduced the sentence to five years. He stated the NAB investigation had found the accused woman having bank balance in millions besides plots of land and other property.
Source: The News
Date:3/4/2010