SC to take up matter to determine length of life imprisonment time on October 2

Islamabad : The Supreme Court (SC) will take up next week an important matter relating to determination of length of time for life imprisonment.

Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa has constituted a seven-member larger bench which will take up the matter on October 2. The larger bench will be headed by Chief Justice and comprising Justice Manzoor Ahmed Malik, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Faisal Arab, Justice Mazhar Lam Khan Miankhel, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed.

In this respect notices have been issued to Attorney General, advocate generals of all the four provinces as well as Islamabad and prosecutor generals of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan. It is to recall that on July 29 the apex court had issued directives for constitution of a larger bench in order to determine the exact length of life imprisonment sentence.

A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa heard a petition, praying for reducing life sentence of a convict into half span of time. During the hearing the chief Justice had said that he had been waiting for a long time for a case where they could determine the span of a life sentence. It’s time to settle the ambiguity in law relating to length of time for life imprisonment”, the CJP had remarked and ordered to constitute a larger bench for the instant matter.

Similarly, in June the chief justice while hearing a case related to same issue had hinted to settle the ambiguity in law relating to length of life imprisonment. The chief justice had directed the Registrar Office to fix the instant matter in first week of October. One Haroon-ur-Rashid was sentenced to death on ten counts by the trial court against which he filed an appeal before the high court however, the high court maintained the sentence against which he filed an appeal before the Supreme Court. Later on, the Supreme Court while hearing the matter, converted the death sentence into life imprisonment and ordered that sentences shall run concurrently.

Similarly, in another case Haroon-ur-Rashid was sentenced to death on two counts by a trail court and he challenged his conviction before the learned high court but the high court rejected his appeal. Finally he had moved the Supreme Court to get the legal remedy and the Supreme Court converted the death sentence into life imprisonment.

Zulfiqar Maloka, counsel for Haroon-ur-Rashid had submitted that the sentences in two different cases should be allowed to run concurrently. Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa however, had observed that life imprisonment is for the whole life. The counsel for the appellant however, contented that it is a settle law that the span of 25 years imprisonment are sufficient for a convict, adding that the court had already increased life imprisonment from 14 to 25 years.

Meanwhile, the chief justice ordered for formation of a larger bench to settle the instant issue and directed the Registrar Office to fix the instant matter in the first week of October.