SC omits controversial paras on govt’s plea

Mubarak Sani case
ISLAMABAD
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, on Thursday (today) heard the Centre’s plea alongside the Punjab government’s petition seeking amendments to the top court verdict of February 6.
The apex court had overturned the conviction of sacrilege accused Sani, who sought deletion of certain charges framed against him in the case filed under Punjab Holy Quran (Printing and Recording) (Amendment) Act.
In its judgment, the court had noted that the offence that the defendant had been accused of was not criminalised till 2021. Consequently, the apex court set aside the conviction and ordered the immediate release of the petitioner.
After the verdict, the provincial government filed a review petition on the SC verdict under Article 188 of the Constitution, but on July 24 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 of the sacrilege accused.
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 in 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 miscellaneous 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 said 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 among the other religious scholars, who requested the federal government for approaching the apex court, attended today’s hearing.
In the short verdict, the top court said the paras excluded from the verdict cannot be cited as precedent in any judgment.