ISLAMABAD, Dec 13: The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the credibility of Pakistani governments, saying the court might ask the authorities to explain where the money collected by the Nawaz Sharif administration under the “Qarz Utaro, Mulk Sunawaro” scheme had gone.

A five-member bench, hearing a challenge by the Punjab government against the Lahore High Court (LHC) judgment in a case of Diyat or blood money, hinted that it might consider asking the government about the scheme.

The scheme was referred by Justice Javed Iqbal, a member of the bench, who expressed concern that such schemes no longer had any credibility since nobody knew how much money was collected, who had taken it or where it had disappeared.

The government collected billions of rupees as people donated liberally when the said scheme was launched by the Nawaz government during his second tenure as the prime minister. The campaign was apparently an attempt to retire foreign loans by encouraging people to contribute generously.

During the hearing, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry also observed that even people living in slum areas had donated generously but later no one knew what happened to the funds. “What will be the future of the country, if our own governments cheat people,” observed the chief justice.

Dr Aslam Khaki, who is assisting the court as amicus curiae (friend of the court) in the diyat case also termed the campaign a political gimmick.

Referring to the case, the bench directed Deputy Attorney-General Nasir Saeed Sheikh to inform the court on Thursday why it had failed to amend the qisas and diyat laws despite the court’s directives.

In its judgment, the LHC had held that the qisas and diyat laws were contrary to the Islamic provisions as well as the fundamental rights, enshrined in the Constitution since a large number of prisoners despite completing their sentence were still languishing in jails because they had no means to pay diyat to the victim family.

The judgment was, however, challenged before the Supreme Court, by the Punjab government and the apex court stayed the order.

Later, in a separate verdict, the Peshawar High Court had also directed the government to amend the law so that the compensation money could be paid by the convicts in instalments.

The chief justice also directed the Punjab government to inform the court on Thursday why it directly moved the appeal before the Supreme Court without first exhausting the remedy available to it by instituting an intra-court appeal.