April 29, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 28: Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar asked Attorney-General Malik Mohammad Qayyum on Monday to find out if the government had plans to bring a legislation to commute death sentence into life term.

“Please tell the court whether any legislation is under consideration of the government on death sentence,” the chief justice observed when appeals of Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Azam and Shah Sawar were taken up by the court at the fag end of the day’s proceedings.

Feeling that the bench was about to adjourn the matter, Advocate Sardar Siddiq requested the court to continue with the case because a delay would result in the hanging of the convicts.

How can they be hanged when the case was pending before the top court? the chief justice asked.

The counsel recalled that the government had sent amid great fanfare an Indian spy (Kashmir Singh) back to his country by pardoning him and it was about to release another (Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh convicted of terrorism), but was unmoved about its own prisoners.

“It is with the government to forgive or pardon any convict and the Supreme Court has nothing to do with it,” the chief justice observed. It was done on a case-to-case basis, the attorney general intervened.

The execution of Sarabjit Singh was delayed by President Pervez Musharraf for a month after the Indian government and his family separately filed appeals with the Pakistan government.

His execution had been set for April 1 after the rejection of his appeals by courts and a mercy petition by the president.