ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Monday admitted a bill for discussion to provide for the Curative Review by the Supreme Court, giving the apex court powers of “curative review” of the decisions in rare of rarest cases.

The bill was presented to the House by the MQM members Nasreen Jalil, Tahir Hussain Mashhadi and Farogh Naseem was moved as a private member bill.

Opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) raised some objections on the bill regarding review and pleaded that this law will open new Pandora Box although none of the treasury or the opposition benches out rightly opposed the bill.

Chairman Senate Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, therefore sent the bill to the concerned committee for further deliberation.

During the course of discussion, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) lawmaker Dr Muhammad Farogh Naseem said that the bill was aimed at giving more power to the Supreme Court and strongly brushed aside that the bill was politically motivated and was being introduced for any political mileage.

He said that there was only one opportunity of review in any case under Supreme Court rules and more opportunities must be provided to the litigants.

PML-N member Zafar Ali Shah said that it would open new Pandora’s Box and alleged that on one side the government was making clamor that the court was transgressing from its constitutional ambit and on the other side under the proposed bill more power was being delegated to the apex court.

He was of the view that under article 188, the litigant could file review petition in the court in 30 days. He said that there was also a very limited scope in review petition and it would benefit lawyers only rather litigants.

Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the constitution was very clear about review and under rules the parliament could make legislation. He said that power of the Supreme Court was not being curtailed rather more power was being delegated.

He said that let the bill send to the committee and if some one has any objection it could be raised in the committee.

Rafiq Rajwana also endorsed Zafar Ali Shah view point and said that the bill was political motivated as some case were pending in the courts.

Meanwhile, the Chairman Senate also referred another bill to provide for an extraordinary procedure to investigate and determine credible claims of factual innocence [The Review of Innocence Claims Bill, 2012.]

The bill was also piloted by MQM member Dr. Muhammad Farogh Naseem.