ISLAMABAD: The Sup­reme Court on Monday re­­jected Punjab government’s appeal and upheld the Lahore High Court ruling that Rana Mohammad Naveed, a convict in the 2003 case of Jha­nda Chichi assassination attempt on then president Pervez Musharraf, was entitled to pre-conviction period in detention and general remissions.

Senior counsel Hashmat Habib who pleaded the convict’s case before the Supreme Court told Dawn that the natural corollary of Monday’s order would be that Naveed who already spent 20 years behind bars after serving out his 14-year jail term would be released immediately.

Headed by Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, a three-judge bench dismissed the appeal of Punjab government and Sahiwal jail superintendent after accepting the March 2019 decision of LHC’s Rawalpindi bench that he was entitled for the benefit of pre-conviction period in detention as well as the remissions under the Army Act, 1952.

In 2005, the SC had converted his death sentence into life imprisonment.

In the case before LHC’s Rawalpindi bench, the petitioner had sought that the benefit of pre-conviction period amounting to one year seven months and 23 days.

The court had held that one of the accused convicted along with Rana Naveed, Adnan Khan, by the Field General Court Martial was allowed pre-conviction period in det­en­tion and remissions by a different bench of the high court in 2015.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2022