SC takes up two fundamental rights issues from tomorrow

ISLAMABAD:The Supreme Court takes up from Monday different clubbed petitions of two important issues pertaining to fundamental rights.

The court will take up one case relating to judicial reviews against verdicts awarded by military courts while another matter of public importance and fundamental rights and enforced disappearance and abduction of civilians allegedly by country’s intelligence agency, will be heard on Wednesday.   

A five-member larger bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, will heard the instant cases. Other members of the bench include Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik and Justice Faisal Arab. 

It is pertinent to mention here that the Supreme Court, in its verdict announced pertaining to establishment of military courts, had declared that any decision taken or sentence awarded by military courts would be subject to judicial review by the high courts and the Supreme Court on the grounds of being coram non judice, without jurisdiction or suffering from mala fide, including malice in law. 

At present, 17 cases relating to judicial reviews, challenging the death sentences awarded by the military courts to different alleged terrorists, mostly belonging to tribal areas, are pending with the apex court. These judicial reviews petitions, filed in the apex court, revolve around the grounds, including denial of right of fair trial under Article-10A and coram-non-judice and mala fide. 

Meanwhile, the apex court will resume on Wednesday some 96 different appeals of enforced disappearances usually known as missing persons. Likewise, the larger bench will also adjudicate upon matter relating to maintainability of the case of mass graves in Totak area of Khuzdar district, Balochistan. 

Last year, on February 10, a two-member bench of the apex court, headed by former Chief Justice Jawad S Khwaja, had directed the federal government and the four provinces to make a proper mechanism for establishing a centralised database for the identification of missing persons and mutilated bodies, found all over the country and ensure proper procedure for handing over these to the legal heirs after providing them information.

The court, while hearing the suo moto case regarding mass grave in Khuzdar District,  Balochistan, and missing persons in the province, had observed that there has been no substantial progress made by the federal government as well as provincial governments for addressing this glaring issue.

Former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, had taken suo moto notice on the press report, carrying statement of Nasrullah Baloch, Chairman of Voice of Baloch Missing Persons, seeking judicial probe into mass graves in Khuzdar.