ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court is expected to take up soon a 12-year-old presidential reference to revisit the controversial death sentence awarded to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979, according to sources.

The reference was filed by former president Asif Ali Zardari on April 2, 2011, to seek the court’s opinion — under its advisory jurisdiction — on revisiting the conviction.

A larger bench may take up the reference in the next few weeks, confided an informed source privy to the development.

Headed by then Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, an 11-judge bench had heard the reference.

The last time the hearing took place at the Supreme Court was in Jan 2012 when the court had temporarily suspended the licence of former law minister Advocate Babar Awan and had asked for replacement of the counsel with another counsel to represent then President Zardari.

While admitting that this was indeed one of the most important cases in the history of this court, the bench had decided to resume further hearing when the president nominates another counsel. Then Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan had replaced Babar Awan.

In a split four-three verdict, a seven-judge Supreme Court bench had upheld a Lahore High Court verdict of awarding death sentence to the former prime minister in March 1979 during the military regime of the then army chief Gen Ziaul Haq, who had overthrown the PPP government in July 1977.

The reference was filed before the apex court under Article 186 (1 and 2) of the Constitution, which empowers the president to refer any question of public importance to the apex court to seek its opinion on an issue.

The reference was filed in line with a decision taken by the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) had founded, and endorsed by then cabinet of prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

On Oct 9, 2018, PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari requested the SC to allow him to become a party in the case, stating that the applicant’s grandfather ZAB was brutally executed in consequence of a stroke of a pen, the 10-page application drafted by Farooq H. Naek stated.

It added that although his life cannot be brought back by a similar stroke, his dignity can be restored and reflected correctly to some extent in the books of precedent and legal history of Pakistan.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari claimed that ZAB throughout his life wanted to uphold the rule of law. It was a loud cry echoing the chords of justice that “let justice be done though the heavens may fall,” the applicant argued, adding this passion of the applicant’s grandfather however, did not derail the irony that was to befall him.

The spirit of justice that ZAB so admired, was nowhere to be found when he himself was adorned with the noose of injustice, he stated, adding ZAB was charged, convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, sentenced and executed on the testimony of an approver in the greatest miscarriage of justice that was ever to befall this country.

The court had also appointed Ali Ahmed Kurd, Tariq Mahmood, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada (deceased), Fakhruddin G Ebrahim (deceased), Khalid Anwar, Makhdoom Ali Khan, S.M. Zafar (now deceased), Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, Barrister Zahoorul Haq and Abdul Latif Afridi (deceased). The five questions were read out by Dr Babar Awan.

Then the court had also declined to accept a request made by Babar Awan, in what he said a desire on part of then president and then prime minister to allow at least one camera to video record the entire court proceedings in a similar fashion as was done in the O.J. Simpson murder trial held by a US court and the Nuremberg trials.

But Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry turned down the request then with an observation that the court was not so advanced.

However, in view of the recent experience of livestreaming of the full court hearing of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023 case, any request for live coverage, if advanced, may be accepted by the court.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2023