• Observes criminal pleas to be expedited by adopting swift justice policy
• Hearing of appeal against death sentence of Zahir Jaffer to resume today

ISLAMABAD: Justice Hashim Kakar on Monday reiterated the Supreme Court’s fresh policy that it will no longer follow the old habit of keep pending appeals in criminal cases since it kept the convict in death cells for a longer period of time that resulted sometime in the miscarriage of justice.

From now on the Supreme Court will decide appeals against murder cases to its logical end without any break, once the matter is taken up by the top judiciary, observed Justice Hashim Kakar who was heading a three-judge bench hearing an appeal moved by Zahir Jaffer against the award of capital punishment on the grounds that the punishment was handed down without identifying fundamental flaws in the First Information Report (FIR) and that the trial court and the high court verdicts were based on erroneous appreciation of evidence.

Earlier Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Yahya Afridi, during a media interaction, had announced constitution of a three specialised benches to exclusively deal with criminal cases, saying he wanted death appeals should be reduced. CJP then had also stated that 1200 cases involving life sentence were pending that will be placed before these benches in which the inmate had spent at least two third of his sentence.

On July 20, 2021, Noor Mukadam was found brutally murdered in Islamabad’s upscale F-7/4 sector, whereas on Feb 24, 2022, the trial court in Islamabad sentenced Jaffer to death for murdering Noor Mukadam. The court also found Jaffer guilty of rape and handed over 25 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs200,000.

Later, a division bench of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on March 14 upheld Jaffer’s death sentence as well as converted life imprisonment also into a death sentence.

On Monday, senior counsel Salman Safdar representing Zahir Jaffer contended that there was ocular witness in the murder case but a camera lens (CCTV) when the case must be decided on the basis of strong circumstantial evidence.

To substantiate, the counsel referred to 2019 Supreme Court judgment in which former chief justice Asif Saeed Khosa had laid down a set of stringent parameters in the Judge Arshad Malik case, identifying how audio and video evidence should be treated while deciding a case.

At this Justice Kakar observed that the stringent parameters developed in the case cannot be used to prove a case even if a person states it while standing besides the holiest place like the Khana Kaaba.

The counsel contended that it was still a mystery how the police learnt about the occurrence of the murder of Noor Mukadam.

The appeal had alleged that the social media hype resulted in the alleged miscarriage of justice as the appellant’s trial was conducted in clear violation of Article 10 A of the Constitution which guarantees fair trial.

The appeal contended that the petitioner was aggrieved with the erroneous conviction and excessively harsh punishment since IHC completely disregarded authoritative judgments that were consulted and relied upon at the time of dealing with quantum of sentence.

Quite seemingly, the appellant’s case, during trial and appellate stage has been dealt with differently than an ordinary case, the appeal stated, adding the prosecution miserably failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt against the appellant.

The hearing will resume again on Tuesday (today).

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2025