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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (48005)	3/14/2005 5:43:54 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

A rape that is moving an entire nation.. SC suspends FSC orders in Mai case * Chief justice takes suo motu notice * Says SC is the competent appellate forum * Bailable warrants for acquitted suspects dailytimes.com.pk Staff Report ISLAMABAD: Suo motu (independent) notice of the Mukhtar Mai gang rape case was taken by Chief Justice of Pakistan Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, and he decided to adjudicate the case himself after suspending the ongoing proceedings of the Federal Shariat Court and Multan bench of the Lahore High Court. In an order, the chief justice ruled that the Federal Shariat Court’s (FSC) order for revision of the high court’s judgement was unconstitutional and unlawful. He summoned the entire record of the case within one week and issued bailable arrest warrants for all the acquitted accused in the case besides serving notice on Mukhtar Mai, advocate general Punjab and other respondents. “Before the matter could be brought before the court, either by the complainant, the state or anyone else, the print and electronic media and the NGOs took extraordinary interest in it. There was a flood of press reports, comments and articles about the judgement delivered by the high court and the matter was thus blown out of proportion,” said the chief justice while giving reasons for taking suo motu notice of the case. “What added fuel to fire was a suo motu order passed by the FSC suspending the judgement of the Lahore High Court, a course not visualised by the Constitution and the law,” said the chief justice in his order. The chief justice ruled that the decision by the Lahore High Court could have been challenged in the Supreme Court under Article 185 of the Constitution and the interference by the FSC was out of jurisdictional domain. The FSC, three days ago, had issued suo motu orders of suspending the judgement of the Lahore High Court with the contention that FSC was the competent forum to hear the case. However the chief justice, in his order, cited that the FSC in its own judgment in ‘Syed Maskin Shah vs the state’ had held that it does not have revisional jurisdiction with respect to an order passed by a high court. This view has been approved by the Supreme Court in another case, the chief justice maintained. Chief Justice Siddiqui also observed that some contempt proceedings had also been initiated in the Lahore High Court and a new dimension had been added to the controversy. Mukhtar Mai was allegedly gang-raped in the presence of a large crowd as a result of a decree of a ‘jirga’ (tribal jury) at Meerwala village of District Multan on June 22, 2002. The case was tried in an anti-terrorism court, which awarded capital punishment to 6 out of 14 accused. However a division bench of the Lahore High Court, Multan on March 4, 2005 acquitted five convicts of the death sentence and also commuted the punishment of the sixth one to life imprisonment.