The 12-year-old presidential reference concerning the reconsideration of the controversial death sentence of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is scheduled to be taken up by the Supreme Court next week, as reported by The News on Friday.
A nine-member larger bench of the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa, is set to hear the presidential reference on Bhutto’s death sentence judgment on December 12.
The decision to fix the case was made under Section 2(1) of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, by a three-member committee comprising CJP Isa, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.
The other members of the larger bench include Justice Masood, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminud Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, and Justice Musarrat Hilali.
Former President Asif Ali Zardari approached the apex court on April 2, 2011, through a presidential reference under Article 186 of the Constitution to seek its opinion on revisiting the trial of PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The last hearing of the reference was held on November 11, 2022.
An 11-member larger bench of the apex court, headed by former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had conducted five hearings in the presidential reference.
Babar Awan, the then federal law minister in the PPP regime, had earlier appeared as the federal government’s lawyer in the case and presented lengthy arguments. However, on January 17, 2012, Awan’s law practice license was suspended for criticising the court’s order in the Memogate case. Later, the case was adjourned due to a change of counsel who were appearing in the instant reference.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has also fixed the petition of sacked Islamabad High Court (IHC) Judge Shaukat Siddiqui challenging his removal for misconduct on December 14.
