–CM says prisons come under jurisdiction of provincial govts
KARACHI: The Sindh government on Thursday moved the Supreme Court against an amendment in the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, which allows the federal government to withdraw ‘better class’ facilities from the accused facing embezzlement cases of Rs50 million or above.
The PPP-led provincial government filed a petition at the top court’s Karachi registry.
The petitioner argued that the “promulgation of the 2019 Ordinance by the President of Pakistan is unconstitutional and ultra vires of Article 89 of the Constitution for having been promulgated in a mala-fide manner, prior to a scheduled session of the House of Parliament”.
The move came a day after the Sindh chief minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, announced that the provincial government would contest the ordinance as “jails were under the jurisdiction of the provincial government(s) and the federal government was not authorized to make such an amendment”.
