The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday during a hearing of a case regarding the execution of 'mentally ill' death row convict Imdad Ali accepted a plea for formation of a medical board to assess the convict's mental health.

A three-judge bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Anwar Zaheer Jamali earlier stayed Imdad Ali's execution by accepting a plea seeking review of its Sept 27 judgement upholding his death sentence.

Death row prisoner, Imdad Ali, who is around 50 years old, was sentenced to death for the murder of a religious teacher in 2002.

His lawyers maintain Ali is unfit to be executed as he is unable to understand his crime and punishment, and that doing so would violate Pakistan's obligations under a United Nations treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The court today accepted a request calling for formation of a medical board to assess Imdad Ali's mental health and ordered the advocate general Punjab to provide names of five mental health specialists by November 16 in order to proceed with constitution of the board.

During the proceedings, CJP Jamali said that the court has not prevented Imdad Ali from receiving medical attention.

"Imdad answered the questions asked by the trial judge correctly," he observed, adding that "there is no concrete evidence that Imdad is a mental patient. A medical certificate can easily be obtained in this country for Rs100."

The CJP said the the case could not be opened in the trial court again. "The Supreme Court has already upheld the high court’s verdict on this case. Thus, the hanging can only be postponed but the verdict cannot be overturned," he said.

CJP Jamali also observed that the convict's original jail records were missing.

"We need to believe in the court’s verdict and not in fake certificates. Imdad's jail records are missing, I am sure the records are never maintained in any jail in this country," the chief justice remarked.

"It is a wonder that a number of NGOs are suddenly taking interest in this case and want to keep this man from being hanged," he said. .

An earlier Justice Project Pakistan report claimed "Imdad Ali is mentally ill and has suffered years without proper treatment," adding that the convict has been diagnosed as a "paranoid schizophrenic".

The SC in October, however, ruled that schizophrenia does not fall within its legal definition of mental disorders, clearing the way for Imdad's execution.

Read more: 'Schizophrenia not a mental illness': SC paves way for Imdad Ali's execution

The three-judge bench headed by the CJP had ruled that schizophrenia is "not a permanent mental disorder".

"It is, therefore, a recoverable disease, which, in all the cases, does not fall within the definition of 'mental disorder'," the judges said in their earlier verdict.

The verdict relied on two dictionary definitions of the term 'schizophrenia', as well as a 1988 judgement by the Supreme Court in neighbouring India.

The American Psychological Association defines schizophrenia as: "a serious mental illness characterised by incoherent or illogical thoughts, bizarre behaviour and speech, and delusions or hallucinations, such as hearing voices".

Dr Tahir Feroze, a government psychiatrist who has treated Ali for the last eight years of his incarceration, earlier said that he and two other doctors certified Ali's condition in 2012.

Ali suffers from delusions that he controls the world, is persecuted and he hears voices in his head that command him, according to Feroze and Safia Bano, Ali's wife.

"He is completely delusional," Bano earlier told Reuters.

Ali's lawyer, Sarah Belal, says the government report certifying Ali's condition had never been presented in court before 2016.

In its judgement, the court dismissed the medical records and an affidavit from Feroze.