A nine-member larger bench of the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa will take up the presidential reference regarding revisiting of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s murder case judgement on December 12.
According to Supreme Court Registrar Jazeela Aslam, the members of the bench included Justice Sardar Tariq 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.
On April 2, 2011, then-president Asif Ali Zardari approached the apex court through a presidential reference under Article 186 of the Constitution of Pakistan to seek its opinion on revisiting the trial of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder.
The last hearing of the reference took place on November 11, 2012.
Babar Awan, who has now joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), had earlier appeared as the federal government’s counsel in the case and had given lengthy arguments. However, on January 17, 2012, Awan’s law practice licence was suspended for criticising the court’s order in the Memogate case.
In the last hearing, PPP’s counsel Aitzaz Ahsan could not appear because he had travelled to Karachi to attend the funeral of late Iqbal Haider, a party stalwart and a senior advocate of the apex court. Accepting the five preliminary questions of law regarding revising the case, the apex court on April 21, 2011, nominated several legal experts as ‘amicus curiae’ or friends of the court, to assist it over the issue. A few of the amici have now passed away.
