PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday accepted multiple petitions, requesting it to declare as unconstitutional the changes to federal narcotics law, which prohibited allowing remission, probation and release to convicts on parole in narcotics cases.

A bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Inamullah Khan pronounced a short order of accepting pleas of eight of the convicts in narcotics cases and directed the respective prison authorities to grant them remissions to which they were entitled.

The bench will release the detailed judgement later.

The petitions were filed by Mohammad Arshid, Iqbal Shah and other convicts, imprisoned in different prisons, requesting the court to declare unconstitutional and against the basic human rights provision of sections 9(A)(1) and (2) introduced through Control of Narcotics Substance (Amendment) Act, 2022.

Accepts plea against changes in narcotics law

They sought declaration of the court to the effect that the petitioners were entitled for remissions in their sentences and refusal of remissions including self-earned and labour as illegal and unlawful.

Advocates Fawad Afzal Safi, Farhana Marwat, Amjid Noor and Amjid Ali Afridi appeared for the petitioners. Senior lawyer Shumail Ahmad Butt appeared as amicus curiae in the case.

The respondents in most of the petitions were federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments through respective law secretaries, attorney general for Pakistan, KP advocate general, KP home secretary, its inspector general of police and the superintendent of relevant prisons.

The petitioners were convicted under Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997, and sentenced by different special anti-narcotics courts to different prison terms for narcotics trafficking. Their sentences were also upheld by the respective high courts.

The petitioners claimed that during the period in prison, their conduct was very good and they had earned some labour and other remissions, but they were kept deprived of the same by the respondents because of CNS (Amendment) Act, 2022.

Petitioners’ lawyers referred to the said amendments, saying: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law or prison rules for the time being in force, no remissions in any sentence shall be allowed to a person, who is convicted under this Act. Provided that in case of a juvenile or female convicted and sentenced for an offence under this Act, remission, may be granted as deemed appropriate by the federal government.”

They said that neither probation in any sentence should be allowed nor any accused convicted under the Act should be released on parole except juvenile or female accused, who could be released on probation or parole as per relevant laws and rules.

They contended that modern justice system was based on reformative theory of punishment, to transform offenders into productive members of the society.

They said that the basic object of remission and probation to an offender was to move away an offender from purely punitive or retributive justice towards reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

They contended that the 2022 Amendment Act had been passed in violation of reformative theory of punishment.

The petitioners said after commission of an offence, the offenders including them didn’t cease to be a human being and thus, depriving them from remission and probation through changes in the law was unconstitutional.

They also contended that the amendments were discriminatory in nature, which violated Article 25 of the Constitution. The provincial government had opposed their pleas and requested the court to reject their petitions.

The government, in its comments, stated that the petitioners had already been granted the admissible remissions strictly in accordance with law, prison rules and applicable policies, wherever legally permissible.

It said that provincial law department had issued an official guidance on Feb 3, 2026, wherein it had categorically clarified that by virtue of the said amendments in CNSA, no remission of any category was legally permissible in cases falling under that law.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2026