ISLAMABAD, AUG 22: The Supreme Court has approved the federal government’s appeal to expunge controversial paras from the contentious Mubarak Sani case verdict.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and comprising Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, heard the Centre’s plea alongside the Punjab government’s petition seeking a second review of the top court verdict of February 6.
In February this year, the apex court had approved the petition filed by sacrilege accused Maubarik Ahmad Sani, seeking deletion of certain charges from the charge framed against him and challenged the Lahore High Court’s orders dated October 16, 2023.
On July 24, in its verdict on the provincial government’s review plea filed under Article 188 of the Constitution, the top court declared it did not deviate in any way from the decisions of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) and the Supreme Court, in approving the bail to the sacrilege accused.
However, the verdict favouring Sani drew outrage among religious circles, and a debate in the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice where both the treasury and opposition benches agreed that the federal government file a petition with the Supreme Court.
Besides the Punjab government’s plea seeking omissions of certain portions from the court’s July 24 revised verdict, the Centre also filed a similar additional plea on August 17 as per Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s directives.
The Punjab government in its petition maintained that some leading clerics and members of parliament requested the federal government to approach the top court and highlight some portions of the verdict that they say merited correction.
It further maintained that certain conclusions and observations made in other parts of the judgment seem to be a mistake and inconsistent with previous rulings of the highest court.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Isfam Fazl’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani of Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi, who were among the religious scholars, who requested the federal government for approaching the apex court, attended today’s hearing.
In today’s short verdict, the top court said the paras excluded from the verdict cannot be cited as precedent in any judgment.
Approving the provincial government’s plea, the apex court decided to take assistance from the religious scholars in the case.
