The Supreme Court (SC) will take up on Thursday (December 11) the application of lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, seeking an early hearing of her plea for a stay in the trial of the controversial social media post case.

On December 4, Mazari and her husband, Hadi Ali Chatha, were facing trial before the additional sessions judge and Peca (Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016) special judge in the controversial tweets case. On December 1, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) denied the couple ad-interim relief of staying the trial. They appealed the IHC order before the SC through their counsel, Faisal Siddiqi.

In their subsequent application from December 4, the petitioners pleaded that the criminal trial against them was at its concluding stage and therefore, extreme urgency in the matter was required. The application also pleaded that the petitioners filed a criminal revision before the IHC to question the trial proceedings in view of violations of due process as prescribed under CrPC, particularly the recording of evidence in the absence of the petitioners.

Headed by Justice Muhammad Hashim Khan Kakar, a three-judge SC bench also consisting of Justices Salahuddin Panwhar and Ishtiaq Ibrahim will hear the plea.

The application argued that the petitioners have a clear prima facie case because the recording of evidence in their absence was not only a violation of Section 353 (evidence to be taken in the presence of the accused) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), but also their due process and fair trial rights under Article 10A of the Constitution.

“As the criminal trial is at its concluding stage, the balance of convenience is in favour of the petitioners because the prosecution would not be prejudiced if the trial is delayed for two weeks,” the application argued.

However, the criminal revision application filed by the couple before the IHC would be rendered unnecessary, due to the lack of ad-interim relief to stay the trial.

Mazari and Chatha would suffer irreparable loss, not only because the criminal revision application would become infructuous, but because of the violations of due process and principles of fair trial in the trial proceedings.

“It is obvious and apparent that this unfair trial is leading to a criminal conviction of the petitioners,” the application stated.

“The November 29 order of the additional sessions judge and Peca special judge clearly showed that the trial was at the stage of recording a statement under Section 342 (power to examine the accused) of the CrPC, and there was a clear and present danger that this trial would lead to the criminal conviction of the petitioners. Thus, the present criminal appeal will become infructuous,” the application argued.

“In terms of Section 7 of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, it is expressly stated that any application pleading urgency will be fixed for hearing within a period of 14 days,” the application pleaded.

It further argued that this is a criminal appeal involving the liberty of the petitioners and therefore should be treated urgently as per the SC’s policy on urgent applications, the application pleaded.

“Failing an urgency being allowed by this court, the interest of justice will seriously be prejudiced and irreparable loss would be caused to the petitioners in the form of possible criminal convictions,” the application argued.

The National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) had registered a case against Mazari and Chatha, accusing the two of attempting to incite divisions on linguistic grounds through social media posts and of creating the impression that the armed forces were engaged in terrorism within the country.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Muhammad Afzal Majoka had indicted the two in the case, in which both denied the charges.

The complaint had accused Mazari of having disseminated and “propagated narratives that align with hostile terrorist groups and proscribed organisations”, while her husband was implicated for re-posting some posts of his wife.

According to the appeal, the complainants disclosed no specific allegations and cherry-picked a few posts made by the petitioners on social media platform X, as far back as 2021.