Islamabad: The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday resumed hearing of the presidential reference seeking court opinion about reopening Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto case.
A three-member bench of the apex court comprising Chief Justice Ifitikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Sair Ali was hearing the case.
During the hearing the CJ observed that no question of law had been raised in the reference and court could not form a larger bench unless the legal flaws in the reference are addressed.Former law minister and the federation’s counsel Babar Awan appeared before the court and said that whole the reference has a question of law and he could prove the point.
The CJ said that previous references that were filed in the SC were based on a certain question of law. He remarked that he was in the favour of reopening the Bhutto case.
He observed that court opinion in the Bhutto case would be studied world wide, therefore, the court wanted all the legal flaws be corrected.
Babar Awan contended that the federal cabinet had discussed the draft of the reference at length.
The CJ remarked that prejudice of judges had been stated in the Z.A Bhutto’s book repeatedly and the court has to mull over the point whether it could be considered a question of law or not.
The chief Justice asked Babar Awan to discuss the matter with the president and the prime minister as the such personalities usually didn’t know technicalities of law.
Awan replied that both of them had spent a lot of time behind the bars and they were aware of laws.
Later the court adjourned the hearing till April 21.
President Asif Ali Zardari had sent a reference to the Supreme Court to reopen case of former prime minister and the PPP founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was awarded death sentence and was hanged on April 4, 1979.His punishment is widely termed as judicial murder.
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