PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday adjourned sine die the hearing into around 135 petitions against the conviction by military courts of suspected militants, who were mostly sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

A bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Syed Arshad Ali declared that hearing into those petitions would resume after the Supreme Court decided scores of appeals filed against the earlier high court judgments in the cases about the military court convictions.

It was hearing the petitions filed by the people convicted by military courts or their family members for their release after the cancellation of convictions.

The petitions have been filed against the convictions by military courts and award of death penalties to suspected militants from time to time in scores of cases of terrorism.

The court has already granted an interim relief to those convicts by staying their execution.

Hearing to resume after SC decides appeals against high court verdicts

Several lawyers, including Arif Jan, Shabir Hussain Gigyani, Naqeebullah Takkar, Ziaur Rehman Tajik and Danyal Asad Chamkani, represented the petitioners.

The federal government was represented by additional attorney general Qazi Babar Irshad and deputy attorney general Amir Javed.

On Oct 18, 2018, a high court bench headed by the then chief justice, Waqar Ahmad Seth, had accepted 75 other petitions of military court convicts and set aside their convictions and sentences mostly death penalties.

On June 16, 2020, the court had accepted 198 petitions filed mostly by close relatives of the military court convicts, mostly sentenced to death or life imprisonment on account of different acts of terrorism.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan had suspended the said judgments of the high court of 2018 and 2020 over appeals filed by the government. The main appeals of the government have still been pending before the apex court.

Qazi Babar Irshad and Amir Javed contended that the appeals originated out of judgments of the high court had been pending and it would be appropriate to wait for the decision of the apex court.

They said prior to acquittal of convicts by the high court, other benches had earlier delivered different judgments and had upheld convictions.

In the most pending cases, the petitioners have claimed that the relevant convict was taken into custody by the security forces many years ago and kept incommunicado. They mostly claimed that after the convict had remained missing for many years they came to know through media reports about conviction of their relative by a military court.

Some of the petitioners claimed that after their relatives had remained missing they later came to know about their presence in internment centres and later on it was reported in newspapers that their relatives were sentenced to death by a military court.

They mostly contend that they were convicted without any evidence and on basis of so-called confessional statements which were recorded contrary to provisions of law.

Their counsels stated that while the convicts had remained in custody of security forces their so-called confessions were recorded with delay of many years.

The high court in the earlier judgments of acquittal of convicts had ruled that in the proceedings before the military courts relevant provisions of Pakistan Army Act and Rules were violated and accused persons were not provided opportunity of availing counsel of their choice.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2021