ISLAMABAD, Feb 13: The Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench on Friday held that a juvenile convict undergoing capital punishment was entitled to the relief granted under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 , even if his case was decided before the promulgation of the ordinance.

Under the ordinance, the juvenile offender cannot be awarded capital punishment, even if the allegation of murder is proved. Justice Tanvir Bashir Ansari, after hearing advocate Malik Anwarul Haq on Friday, held that the ordinance 2000 would be applicable with retrospective effects, and even those convicts who had lost their cases in the high court and the Supreme Court were entitled for the relief given under the law.

Amjad Saleem of the Democratic Commission for Human Rights Development, an NGO working for the elimination of capital punishment, had raised the case of two brothers, Sikandar Hayat and Jamshed Ali, whose death warrants had been issued.

It was argued before the court that the convicts were under 18 at the time of commission of the offence in 1995. Justice Tanvir Bashir Ansari held that the sessions judge was competent to convert the death sentence of the convicts into life imprisonment if it had been proved that they were less than 18 years of age at the time of commission of offence. The district and sessions judge Jehlum had declined to interfere in the case, saying that the case had been decided by the Supreme Court.

Notice Served: The LHC served on Friday a notice on the University of Health Sciences on a petition of 29 students of the Rawalpindi Medical College.