• Orders trial court hearing Mubarak Sani case to stick to law, not be influenced by earlier apex court rulings
• Fazl makes rare appearance in SC; declares Friday a day of thanksgiving

ISLAMABAD: After a prolonged hearing, the Supreme Court on Thursday tried to put to rest the controversy regarding the Mubarak Sani case, expunging contentious paragraphs from its Feb 6 and July 24 decisions.

In a brief order issued after a meeting between clerics and the CJP in his chambers, which lasted almost two hours, the court declared that the disputed paragraphs would not be cited in any manner as precedence in the future. The religious scholars who attended the hearing included JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Mufti Taqi Usmani — who participated via video link from Turkiye — and others.

Following the meeting, the three-member bench, including Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, assembled to announce the judgement in the jam-packed Courtroom No. 1, where the slogan of “Zindabad” was also raised.

After the verdict was announced, the scholars were seen embracing and left the premises with smiling faces. Soon after the verdict, Maulana Fazlur Rehman — who mentioned that this was his first time appearing before the court in decades — thanked the apex court and parliament, and announced they would observe Youm-i-Tashakkur (a thanksgiving day) on Friday over the fresh judgement.

The July 24 judgement on a set of review petitions against the Feb 6 Mubarak Ahmad Sani case had kick-started a controversy and prompted a malicious campaign against the CJP. On Aug 19, a group of charged protesters even managed to reach the Supreme Court to demonstrate against the judgement.

As the SC took up the case on Thursday, all roads leading to the apex court were blocked with containers, to keep demonstrators out of the Red Zone.

The fresh verdict came on a miscellaneous application seeking the omission of certain portions of the Mubarak Ahmad Sani case verdict which was announced in the open court on July 24 on a review petition.

The Supreme Court order also mentioned a unanimous resolution by parliament in this regard.

It said that the federal government’s application had cited a number of ulema, pleading that their point of view should be considered by the court before omitting certain paragraphs from its previous judgement.

During proceedings, the clerics expressed their reservations over the controversial paragraphs in the impugned judgements and stressed that the Supreme Court while deciding the present matter should also consider comprehensive recommendations by the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII).

“I don’t want to say but am helpless; I pray in every prayer that may God prevent me from making any wrong decisions,” CJP Isa said. “A person is known by their actions and words,” he observed.

Mufti Taqi Usmani argued that the citations of the Holy Quran in the July 24 judgement had been taken out of context, adding that the court should have confined itself to the bail matter, rather than going into detail by quoting different verses from the Holy Quran.

He maintained that the judgement gave the impression as if the Ahmadi community enjoyed the right to preach and propagate their religion, even in private gatherings, when Section 298(C) of the Pakistan Penal Code barred them from doing so.

After hearing the clerics at length, the Supreme Court accepted the application of the federal government and ordered the erasure of paragraphs from the Feb 6 and July 24 judgements with a direction that these expunged paragraphs would not be used as precedence in future.

The court also ordered that the trial court seized with the case of Mubarak Ahmed Sani would not be influenced or prejudiced by the two judgements, and would decide the matter strictly as per the law.

It may be noted that the Feb 6 decision of the court overturned the conviction of Mubarak Sani, who was accused of an offence under the Punjab Holy Quran (Printing and Recording) (Amendment) Act enforced in 2021.

However, as per the FIR, the petitioner had committed the alleged crime in 2019 when it was not an offence. Consequently, the apex court had set aside the impugned orders and ordered the release of the petitioner.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2024