KARACHI               -           The Sindh High Court on Monday granted bail to two accused in Karachi Port Trust (KPT) illegal recruitment case.

A bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) approved bail petitions of General Manager KPT Rauf Akhtar Farooqui and Manager HR Mehmood Sharif.

The Sindh High Court (SHC) also ordered both of the accused to deposit a surety bond of one million each as bail money.

The bench also ordered the government to put the names of both on the exit control list (ECL).

An accountability court has declared former federal minister for ports and shipping Babar Ghauri proclaimed offender in the accountability reference.

Earlier, an accountability court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Babar Ghauri in a case related to illegal appointments in the Karachi Port Trust (KPT).

According to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), eight men, including Ghauri, in connivance with each other had illegally regularized 940 employees of the KPT, causing Rs2.8bn loss to the national exchequer.

Baldia factory fire: SHC reserves verdict on plea seeking to make JIT reports public

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday reserved its verdict on a petition seeking to make public Joint Investigation Team (JIT) reports of the Baldia factory inferno, Lyari gang war kingpin Uzair Baloch and Nisar Morai.

The petition was filed by incumbent Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Zaidi seeking the Sindh high court (SHC) to make the JIT reports public.

The counsel of the petitioner Barrister Umar Soomro appeared before the bench in the case today.

Additional Advocate General Sindh Sarwar Khan in his arguments said that the petition is not about a public interest matter. He said the petitioner was not an affected party in the incidents related with these cases.

These are police reports about the cases which are being heard by courts, the government counsel said.

Making these reports public could have impact on the cases under Sindh high court (SHC) hearing, he further argued.

The bench after arguments of counsels reserved its verdict on the matter.

The sealed JIT reports were already submitted to the bench in pursuance of its orders.

The Karachi-based lawmaker had moved a petition in the Sindh high court (SHC) seeking court directives for the law enforcement agencies to make public JIT reports of Uzair Baloch, Morai and the Baldia inferno case.