ISLAMABAD, May 19 The Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court issued notices on Wednesday to trustees of the Sheikh Sultan Trust, including President Asif Ali Zardari, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto and other legal heirs of slain prime minister Benazir Bhutto, on a petition challenging a Federal Shariat Court (FSC) judgment.

The five-judge appellate bench comprising Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, Justice Mahmood Akhtar, Justice Shahid Siddiqui, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar and Justice Dr Mohammad Al-Ghazali observed that the FSC could not dispose of the matter without hearing the other side.

The appeal has been filed by Mazhar Alam.

The notices have been issued to the federal government through finance and law ministries, the president, his children, Begum Nusrat Bhutto and the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Trust, a public benevolent and charitable trust. The bench adjourned the hearing without fixing the next date.

The FSC judgment had asked the government to return ownership, property and assets of the government-controlled trust to the heirs of Benazir Bhutto and Nusrat Bhutto. It had rejected a petition seeking record of information about trustees of the “People's Foundation” (Trust) which was renamed as Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Trust when Gen Ziaul Haq was in power.

Gen Zia had frozen bank accounts of the trust and its associates in the United Bank and National Bank of Pakistan.

On Wednesday, Dr Aslam Khaki, the counsel for the petitioner, contended that the FSC had gone beyond its jurisdiction while deciding the matter. He said the trust was a public property.

Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had constituted the trust through the Trust Deed of Aug 9, 1974, with Begum Nusrat Bhutto, late Murtaza Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto as trustees.

The objective of the trust was to establish a press and different ventures for spreading information in Pakistan and elsewhere, to print and publish journals, magazines, periodicals and newspapers, to extend aid to institutions which in the opinion of trustees are engaged in imparting, spreading and promoting learning and to establish institutions and contribute to their maintenance and to give aid to individuals and institutions.