KARACHI, Nov 11: A full bench of the Sindh High Court reserved on Monday judgment on a writ petition filed by former PPP senator Asif Ali Zardari challenging the validity of the Ehtesab Act of 1997 and the National Accountability Bureau Ordinance of 1999.

Agreeing with the NAB counsel, Mohammed Anwar Tariq, the bench, which consisted of Justices S. Ahmed Sarwana, Zahid Kurban Alavi and Shabbir Ahmed, observed that the petitioner wanted a declaration without seeking consequential relief as no reference against him was pending in the territorial jurisdiction of the Sindh High Court.

Advocate K.M. Nadeem, counsel for the petitioner, rose to explain that consequential relief was implicit in the declaration prayed for. Once the court held the 1997 Act and the 1999 Ordinance were repugnant to the Constitution, all accountability references against him would stand quashed. The vires of any law, he argued, could be challenged in the constitutional jurisdiction of the high court. The provisions of the Ehtesab Act were violative of the constitutional guarantees, but those of the NAB Ordinance were more flagrantly so. For instance, the right of bail, available to an accused under the Act, was taken away by the Ordinance. Jail term was extended from seven to 14 years and the period of disqualification from five to 21 years. The forum of trial and the constitutional mechanism envisaged for disqualification were all changed or done away with to the detriment of the accused with retrospective effect.

The Ordinance, he pointed out, was promulgated on October 14, 1999, but was made applicable from 1985. The proceedings pending under the repealed Ehtesab Act had been revived by the new Ordinance without protecting the rights accruing to the accused. The petition, which was filed in 1998, was amended to assail the provisions of the Ordinance, particularly its sections 33 and 35 that resuscitated the proceedings under the defunct law.

Advocate Anwar Tariq said the subsequent developments had rendered obsolete the questions of law and facts agitated by the petitioner. Even when the petition was filed in 1998 no investigation was pending against Mr Zardari. The impugned Ehtesab Act had been repealed and the accountability machinery set up under it had ceased to exist. No reference was subsequently made or was pending against the petitioner in the jurisdiction of the Sindh High Court. The court was being asked to undertake an academic exercise and decide hypothetical questions, which was not possible under article 1999 of the Constitution.

Without prejudice, he said, the validity of both the accountability laws had been upheld by the Supreme Court. None of their provisions was found to be repugnant to article 12 or 25. Sections 33 and 35 were valid pieces of legislation and correspond to section 6 of the General Clauses Act, he added.