ISLAMABAD, Oct 9: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a bail plea of the president of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, who has been sentenced in a mutiny case.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi was hearing three petitions of Mr Hashmi –- a bail plea, a challenge against his conviction with a plea to suspend his sentence and against the conduct of trial in Adiala jail.
“We are being discriminated against but we will continue to approach every forum for justice,” the ARD leader’s daughter MNA Maimoona Hashmi said after the hearing. Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leaders Tehmina Daultana, Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, Ahsan Iqbal and Chaudhry Tanveer were also present.
Pleading the bail petition, Mr Hashmi’s counsel Akram Sheikh requested the court to suspend the conviction, saying that the incarceration of his client was damaging the democratic polity in the country.
Mr Hashmi was sentenced to 23-year imprisonment on April 12, 2004, on charges of inciting mutiny, defaming the army and its officers, forgery and abetment.
He was arrested on Oct 29, 2003, nine days after he distributed among newsmen in parliament’s cafeteria a letter allegedly written by an anonymous army officer, inciting the public against the army.
The counsel read out a statement of Mr Hashmi in which he stated that he respected the institution of army but considered the present rulers usurpers.
Mr Hashmi demanded constitution of a commission led by the chief justice to initiate a sedition case against those involved in the 1999 Kargil fiasco in which, according to him, the country had suffered more heavy losses than the 1965 and 1971 wars.
The counsel contended that the case was of politically motivated and discriminatory prosecution and Mr Hashmi was behind the bars for expressing his mind.
Of the seven counts under which Mr Hashmi had been convicted, he had served the sentence for five, while charge of abetting mutiny was doubtful and, therefore, the court should grant him bail, he emphasised.
Mr Sheikh contended that the prosecution violated constitutional immunity of parliament and was against the concept of sovereignty of parliament.
The cafeteria, he explained, was part of precincts of the National Assembly and anything said or done there was protected. Any process of law could be set in motion only by the speaker, the custodian of the house, and any visitor of the assembly, complainant Khurshid Ahmed in the case, could not be the basis of an FIR, he said.
The counsel argued that the complainant had mentioned that other members, namely Aitzaz Ahsan, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed and Liaquat Baloch, during the press conference had endorsed the views of the accused and distributed copies of the letter. But those members were never associated with the investigation as witnesses or accomplices, he said.
During the investigation, neither any press reporter was examined nor the press clippings or news items provided in accordance with the law while the trial court illegally received in evidence photocopies of newspapers, he said.
Special Prosecutor Munir Bhatti argued that the judgment of the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court was sustainable and there was no infirmity in it, therefore, the bail petition should be dismissed. He said all the charges stood proven before the court.
On a query by the court, he said Mr Hashmi had served two years, eleven months and 10 days in the jail.
