ISLAMABAD: Former chief justice of Pakistan and one of the petitioners before the Supreme Court, Jawwad S. Khawaja, wrote a letter on Thursday to the three-judge committee responsible for fixing cases before benches, urging them to constitute a seven-judge bench comprising senior judges to decide intra-court appeals (ICA) in the military court case.

Moved through his counsel, Khwaja Ahmad Hosain, the letter stated that the committee, formed under Section 2 of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act 2023, should constitute the larger bench in order of seniority, which should consist of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, Justice Aminud Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, and Justice Shahid Waheed.

This is the second such letter; the previous one was written by a senior counsel Faisal Siddiqui to the committee’s secretary on Dec 21 with a request to place the letter since the earlier six-judge bench that heard ICA against the military court case was not properly constituted.

The fresh letter by Justice Khawaja stated that the six-judge bench, by a majority of five to one, had passed an interim order suspending the operation of the Oct 23 short order to the extent that it struck down provisions of the Army Act 1952, subject to the condition that no final judgement shall be passed against the 103 accused persons by the military courts.

The author reminded that he had also filed an application seeking the recusal of the head of the six-judge bench, namely Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, since he had expressed a clear view in deciding one of the issues in this very case.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2023