News
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Hearing of ZAB case resumes Monday
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: An 11-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, will resume the hearing of the presidential reference filed to revisit the death sentence awarded to Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) founder and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on Monday (tomorrow).
Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, Justice Nasirul Mulk, Justice Muhammad Sair Ali, Justice Mahmood Akhtar Shahid Siddiqui, Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Justice Ghulam Rabbani are the other members of the bench, which had, on May 12, adjourned the hearing until last week of June.
The bench had examined various aspects of the questions of law raised during the preliminary hearing of the reference by counsel for the federation, Dr Babar Awan.
An official told Daily Times that the government was considering filing an application to seek the court’s permission for media coverage of the court proceedings. To a question, he said that Babar Awan would complete his arguments in one week.
Senior leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party would attend the court’s proceedings on Monday.
The apex court has to give its opinion on the presidential reference sent to it by the president under Article 186 of the constitution for revisiting the death sentence handed down to Bhutto in 1979 by the Lahore High Court and also upheld by a Supreme Court bench.
Earlier, the CJP had appointed Latif Afridi, Ashraf Qazi, Fakhruddin G Ibrahim, Makhdoom Ali Khan, Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd, SM Zaffar, Tariq Mehmood, Hafeez Pirzada and Barrister Zahoorul Haq as amicus curiae.
After the completion of Babar Awan’s arguments, the attorney general of Pakistan and advocate generals of all the provinces will start present their arguments.
The bench would give its opinion on the judicial decision frequently termed by a large number of jurists and members of civil society as ‘judicial murder’ of one of the most popular leaders.Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk