November 29, 2001	Thursday	Ramazan 13, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: All the provinces and the registrars of high courts have agreed to the interim order of the Supreme Court, allowing the chief justices of high courts to place the bail applications before any available bench if the same bench which had earlier dealt with the matter was not available.

The Supreme Court had taken suo motu action on the issue that had cropped up as under the Supreme Court, (State versus Zubair PLD 1986) to make the bail granting procedure more convenient.

The SC bench which heard the case consisted of Chief Justice Irshad Hasan Khan, Justice Muhammad Bashir Jehangiri, Justice Chaudhry Mohammad Arif and Justice Qazi Muhammad Farooq.

The Chief Justice of Lahore High Court, however, opposed the idea of granting the same powers to the senior judges at its benches at Rawalpindi, Multan and Bahawalpur.

Barrister Tariq Khokar, additional Advocate-General of Punjab, stated since the matter might involve sending of cases from one bench to another, therefore, power to relax the rigours of the dictum of Zubair’s case should be conferred only to the Chief Justice of High Court and the said power might not be conferred on senior judges of different benches.

Makhdoom Ali Khan, Attorney-General of Pakistan, submitted that the convention which required that successive bail applications be heard by the same judge, was not absolute.

He stated it must balanced as the bail matters were always of an urgent nature.

He contended that the rule in Zubair’s case, therefore, must not be applied where the judge who had dealt with the bail application earlier was on leave or otherwise unavailable for a reasonable period of time.

The AG said that in order to avoid an abuse of the process of the court and to maintain judicial discipline in all such cases a reference must be made to the Chief Justice who alone will decide whether the judge was so available.

The AG said that since the decision in Zubair’s case was primarily directed towards maintaining harmony in judicial decisions and judicial discipline, the rule must not be made to apply to cases where the bail application was moved on a fresh ground i.e. a ground which was neither raised nor was available at the time when the first application was heard.

There was no danger of conflicting decisions in such cases as the bail application was based on different grounds. The rule in Zubair’s case, he maintained, was based on the salutary principles that justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done.