KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday was informed by the home department that inquiry reports on Baldia factory fire, Uzair Baloch’s confessional statements and other high profile criminal cases had been submitted to the trial courts and there was no need to publicize the same.
A division bench was hearing a petition filed by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Syed Ali Zaidi who had approached the court against the provincial chief secretary for not providing him the copies of joint investigation team’s reports.
In its reply, the home department submitted that above mentioned cases were pending in the trial courts, adding that publicity of JIT reports may damage the cases. The JIT reports would be used as evidences against the suspects.
Earlier, PTI leader had petitioned the high court and submitted that the Sindh Transparency and Right to Information law, 2011 has already been passed by the provincial assembly which allows every citizen the ‘right to information’.
He submitted that he had requested the chief secretary many times to provide copies of the JIT reports of the Baldia factory fire incident, alleged crimes of Lyari gang-war leader Uzair Baloch and cases against the former chairperson of Fishermen Cooperative Society, Nisar Morai but he had failed to provide the required information.
“The publication of the JIT reports is important to ensure that the true culprits are not able to evade Justice.
The precedence of making investigation reports public has been set by the Lahore High Court, which had on September 21 this year, ordered that the report of Justice Ali Baqar Najfi on the Model Town massacre in Lahore to be made public,” the petitioner said.
Zaidi requested the court to direct the authorities concerned to make public the investigation reports under Article 19-A of the constitution of Pakistan.
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