LAHORE: The High Court (LHC) has sought responses from the authorities in response to a petition alleging that prisoners are languishing in jails due to the failure to follow laws governing a fund for convicts who are unable to pay reparations in various circumstances.
Nadeem Sarwar, the petitioner’s lawyer, said that a lot of inmates were languishing in various Punjab jails due to non-payment of Arsh, Diyat, and Daman after serving their terms.
He said the Supreme Court has ordered the federal government to make guidelines under Section 338G of the Penal Code to give effect to those portions that provide a mechanism for creating funds to pay Arsh, Diyat, and Daman to convicts who are languishing in bars due to a lack of financial resources.
The federal government established a Diyat, Arsh, and Daman Fund and structured its rules by invoking specific parts of the PPC to provide financial support to convicts who are in prison owing to non-payment of Diyat, Arsh, and Daman amounts to victims’ heirs due to poverty.
The prisoners who met the criteria were to receive soft loans or grants from the fund.
The Diyat, Arsh, and Daman Fund Rules 2007 were amended last year to allow the State Bank to issue instructions to scheduled banks to advance soft loans to offenders at a rate of interest not exceeding 1% inclusive of all charges or interest-free loans for the purpose, according to the counsel.
According to the counsel, the updated rules also allow the State Bank to instruct Islamic banks to pay the amounts from their charity funds. He said that many meetings of the administrative committee had been held since the fund’s inception, and that certain cases had been authorised in Punjab as well.
Despite the establishment of the fund and the formation of a provincial sub-committee, he pleaded with the court that 78 convicts were languishing in jails due to non-payment of Arsh, Diyat, and Daman amounts totaling Rs98.43 million, despite having fulfilled their sentences.
