271/2022 Cr.Rev BASHEER AHMED SODHAR S/O BAKSHAL (Applicant) V/S THE STATE & ORS (Respondent)

271/2022 Cr.Rev BASHEER AHMED SODHAR S/O BAKSHAL (Applicant) V/S THE STATE & ORS (Respondent) Sindh High Court

Bench: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Salahuddin Panhwar, Hon'ble Mr. Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon(Author) Order Date: 20-NOV-24

Coming to the main issue, the offenses under the Sindh Public Property (Removal of Encroachment) Act, 2010, are cognizable. This means that the police have the authority to arrest the accused without a warrant and investigate the case further, which provision of the law ought to have been invoked by the Police, however, they rather preferred to invoke the jurisdiction of ATC on the purported plea that revenue officials were deterred from their duties with terror charges, but it is yet to be determined by the court whether sections 6, 7, and 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 were/are attracted or otherwise as the contents of F.I.R, prima facie show the allegations of general nature as such these offenses of PPC could be tried by the ordinary/regular court rather than the special court, in terms of the ratio of the judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in the case of Ghulam Hussain case, just on the plea of Mukhtiarkar and Police to the effect that injury was caused to them; however, the police report lacks a medical certificate required to charge the accused under section 337-A (i) PPC. Besides it is unclear whether the official intended to remove encroachment from public or private land. A regular court should determine this aspect of the case after framing the charge, and transfer the case if necessary under the law for the reason that Section 23 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 allows for the transfer of a case from an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) to an ordinary court.