KARACHI, Jan 28: The fate of 261 men on death row in Sindh hangs in the balance as their appeals are pending decisions at different redressal forums. Some of the appeals have been undecided for as long as eight years.
Inquiries showed that as many as 216 appeals were pending decisions in the Sindh High Court alone, and 32 others in the Supreme Court. Besides, 12 mercy petitions are pending disposal before the president.
There are 117 condemned prisoners in Central Prison, Karachi, 81 in Central Prison, Sukkur, and 63 in Hyderabad Jail and some of them have been waiting for decisions on their appeals for well over 10 years.
According to jail authorities, the death cells in the three prisons are overcrowded owing to delay in the disposal of appeals of the condemned convicts.
They said that 91 appeals of the condemned prisoners, lodged at the Central Prison, Karachi, were pending before the SHC, 18 in the Supreme Court, and eight mercy petitions were pending before the president.
The authorities said appeals of as many as 69 condemned prisoners in Sukkur jail were pending in the SHC and 10 in the Supreme Court. One mercy petition before the president and one appeal before the Federal Shariat Court are also pending, they said.
According to the authorities, appeals of 56 condemned convicts in Hyderabad jail were pending in the SHC and four in the Supreme Court. Three mercy petitions of the convicts were also pending decision by the president, they said.
Inquiries showed the appellants included those 70 who were convicted by different district and sessions courts in the province, and the remaining were condemned to death by special courts, which included STA and speedy trial courts and the anti- terrorism courts, during the last 10 years.
Of the appellants, about 62 were condemned to death, mainly for murders, in 1998 by the trial courts in Sindh, and their appeals are pending with those 39 sentenced to the capital punishment in 1995.
The appellants included those over 60 convicted in Karachi, about 28 in Larkana, about 21 in Hyderabad, about 17 in Khairpur, 10 in Sukkur, nine in Dadu, and about seven each Jacobabad and Badin, and two each in Mirpurkhas and Tharparkar.
About 80 appellants were condemned to death by the former courts for Suppression of Terrorist Activities. Of them, some 28 were awarded the capital punishment in Karachi, about 22 in Larkana, 17 in Khairpur, five each in Sukkur and Dadu and about three in Hyderabad.
More than 120 accused in different cases were condemned to death by the anti-terrorism courts in Karachi since their inception in May 1999.
The condemned convicts included about 55 workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and nine activists of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement.
Sources in the legal fraternity said the delay in the disposal of the appeals was being caused by the cumbersome procedure of proceeding with the appeals. They said in every appeal a ‘paper book’ had to be prepared for the perusal of the appellant bench.
The sources said the paper book was prepared by the translation branch and the copying branch of the SHC. All documents and exhibits in Urdu and Sindhi are first translated into English by the translating branch, which, they said, had a very meagre strength of staff.
The sources said the copying branch had only three old photocopiers, which were not sufficient to accomplish this heavy task.
Besides, they said the benches of the high court were already overworked. Normally there is only one or two benches hearing the regular appeals.
The sources said if the hearing of an appeal starts, it takes from three to 30, or even, more days to conclude. “So, in such circumstances all appeals fixed for hearing during these days are discharged to date in office”, they said.
