ISLAMABAD, March 24: A new bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justice Javed Iqbal will take up for hearing the case of missing persons on Monday in the absence of Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
Other members of the bench are Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan.
The new bench was set up by new Acting Chief Justice, Mr Justice Rana Bhagwandas, after taking oath in Karachi on Saturday.
The hearing date of missing persons’ case will be honoured by the new bench.
The bench will take up petitions of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Ms Amina Masood Janjua, Saqlain Mehdi, Aisha, Abdul Ghaffar, Amtul Hafiz, Fatima, Mohammad Ikram Alvi, Arif Abbasi and Syed Babar.
In all, 11 human right cases, all pertaining to disappeared persons, will be taken up by the bench on Monday. The application of Ms Janjua pertains to a list of 43 missing persons whose unexplained disappearance for the last one-and-a-half years is believed to have been caused by their suspected links to Al Qaeda or other outfits.
Of the 43 missing men, whereabouts of only 10 people are still unknown while the rest have been traced because of the intervention of the court.
In its petition, the HRCP has attached a separate list of 141 persons, the majority of whom are either from nationalist parties, their student wings, post-graduate students studying in different universities, particularly in Sindh and Balochistan, members of different religious groups, parties, working journalists, scientists and even some from armed forces.
Filed on behalf of its chairperson, Ms Asma Jahangir, the HRCP petition has sought establishment of an independent commission of senior lawyers, parliamentarians and former judges to look into the case of disappeared persons, record their testimony of having suffered involuntary disappearances, and the family members of those still untraced.
The petition has also requested the SC bench to order compensation to families of the disappeared, kidnapped, illegally arrested or tortured.
The petition has also demanded action against officers of the federal government, their agents and their subordinates responsible for illegal arrest, arbitrary detention, abduction or disappearances of the people and for subjecting them to mental or physical torture or causing them any disability.