ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has declared in unequivocal terms that complete faith in the finality of the prophethood of Holy Prophet (PBUH) is subject to accepting the prophet as the seal of Prophethood.

In a much-awaited detailed order, issued on Thursday, the court explained why it had expunged contentious paragraphs from its Feb 6, 2024 and July 24, 2024 decisions in the Mubarak Ahmad Sani case.

The top court ruled that the contentious and disputed paragraphs from the aforementioned decisions would not be cited as precedent in fu­­ture. The present judgement is being given under Section 561-A of CrPC along with Order 33, Rule 6 of the Supreme Court Rules 1980 as well as sections 152 and 153 of CPC. The present judgement will recall the previous order of Feb 6, and subsequent order of July 24, thus making it the final and conclusive decision.

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The miscellaneous application was moved by the federal and Pun­jab governments to seek omissions of certain portions from the two previous orders.

Authored by Chief Justice of Pak­istan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, the ten-pa­ge judgement in Urdu explains that Constitution through Article 260(3) has already declared compl­e­­te and unqualified belief in the finality of prophethood as an integral part of the definition of “Muslim”.

Article 260(3) defines the meaning of Muslim as the one who believes in the unity and oneness of Almighty Allah and in absolute and unqualified finality of the prophethood of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as the last of the prophets.

The definition also said that Muslims are those who do not believe in or recognise as a prophet or religious reformer any person who claimed or claims to be a prophet, in any sense of the word or of any description whatsoever, after Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

Thus in line with this definition, no further explanation or reason is acceptable, the judgement said, adding that like other countries or states where it was obligatory upon each citizen to honour and accept the respective laws of the land without any ifs and buts, it is incumbent upon the Ahmadis to accept their legal status as already enshrined in the Constitution so that their legal rights and protection could be ensured as prescribed by the Constitution.

However, the judgement maintained that the Feb 6 order in terms of bail will continue to hold the field, and ordered the trial court seized with the bail matter of Mubarak Ahmad Sani to proceed without being influenced by the now-nullified Feb 6 and July orders.

The trial court is required to independently assess the circumstances of the case to determine if the charges against the accused are valid under the relevant sections, the judgement said.

It explained that when this case was heard first, the court had no knowledge about the controversial book or its author, which resulted in a significant error in the earlier court orders.

The judgement explained that the Supreme Court has no authority to entertain a second review on an already decided matter; therefore, the present judgement should not be considered as the second review. It elucidated that the present decision has been issued only to rectify the ambiguity on the applications of the federal and the Punjab governments since the earlier orders contained errors.

The July 24 judgement had kick-started a controversy. On Aug 19, charged protesters reached the Supreme Court to protest against the judgement.

The Feb 6 decision had overtu­r­ned the conviction of Mubarak Sani, who is accused of an offence under the Punjab Holy Quran (Printing and Recording) (Amendment) Act enforced in 2021. However, the FIR alleged that the petitioner had committed the act in 2019, before it had been deemed an offence.

Consequently, the apex court had set aside the impugned orders and ordered immediate release of the petitioner.

This led to what the government and the legal community termed a “malicious and slanderous campaign” against the chief justice, even prompting the Supreme Court to release a clarification.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2024