KARACHI, Sept 4: A full bench of the Sindh High Court allowed on Monday an application moved by PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto for amendments to her pending petition for notification as a member of the National Assembly from a woman’s seat of Sindh.
In her petition filed on the eve of general elections in 2002, the former prime minister recalled that in the course of an earlier petition challenging inclusion of her name in the exit control list she submitted before the Lahore High Court on Dec 30, 1998, that she would have no objection if the six Ehtesab (accountability) references instituted against her proceeded in her absence. Her counsel, Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, undertook to enter appearance on her behalf.
The LHC ordered accordingly and she proceeded abroad to join her ailing mother, Begum Nusrat Bhutto, and her children in January 1999. She was convicted by an LHC Ehtesab bench in April 1999 in her absence but the Supreme Court set aside the conviction in appeal in 2001 for bias revealed by taped conversations of the LHC bench and the reference was remanded for fresh trial.
The petitioner said the new trial (accountability) court was requested by Advocate Latif Khosa, not to proclaim her an absconder and deem her to be present through him in terms of the LHC order. The court, however, rejected the application without detailed hearing and proceeded to declare her absconder and sentenced her on May 21, 2002, under Section 31-A of the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance. A review plea was dismissed by the court and similar orders were passed in a couple of other references.
To keep her and her party out of political arena, the PPP chairperson said the election law was amended to disqualify candidates ‘convicted and sentenced for having absconded by a competent court’. She said Section 31-A did not provide for ‘conviction’ and ‘guilt’ only follows by operation of law. A person sentenced under the provision could not be said to have been ‘convicted’. She prayed that she be declared eligible to contest the poll.
In her amendment application filed through Advocates Kamaluddin Azfar, Farooq H. Naek and Khalid Jawed Khan, Ms Bhutto said the Supreme Court had held Section 31-A of the NAB Ordinance violative of Article 9 of the constitution in the case of Gul Zaman Kasi versus the State in 2004. The provision having been struck down, the petitioner said, she be declared elected to one of the seats reserved for women in the National Assembly from Sindh as she was at the top of the list of PPP Parliamentarian candidates. Her trial in absentia be declared unlawful and the Election Commission of Pakistan should be directed to notify her election to the National Assembly. The application also sought certain other consequential changes in the petition.
The application was heard by a four-member SHC bench, comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justices Ghulam Rabbani, Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Mushir Alam. Deputy Attorney-General Akhtar Ali Mahmud argued that it was for the courts to determine the state of law on a particular point and the petitioner’s interpretation of it could not be accepted as true. The prayer that the petitioner should be declared elected, he contended, would change the entire complexion of the case. Besides, the sitting MNA likely to be replaced was not before the court, the law officer said.
The bench allowed the application subject to final determination of the points raised by the DAG. Notices were also ordered to be issued to the attorney-general and the Election Commission.
