Steps needed to end miseries of poor litigants

ISLAMABAD : Pakistan’s criminal justice system is being badly exposed in the top court of the country frequently.

Though the performance of superior judiciary is laudable in ending the criminal cases as well as providing justice to poor litigants but there are areas where the executive has yet to take steps to end the miseries of poor litigants.

Likewise, Jamal Khan case is a classic example of the negligence of jail authorities, wherein an individual is languishing in the death cell for last 17 years in Sukkur jail and he is still unaware about his fate. There are a number of cases wherein the accused got acquitted after serving their sentence. Even, a couple of convicted persons were acquitted after their death.

When Khan was convicted in March 2001 by the special court Karachi under Section 302 (b) PPC, his age was almost 19.

In the same year, he was shifted to the death cell of Sukkur jail. Subsequently, Jamal’s conviction was upheld by the Sindh High Court in November 2002. Now he is waiting for the decision on his bail petition.

“Last year, I received a letter from my client Tariq Rajpoot, who is also a death row prisoner in Sukkur jail, that his fellow Jamal Khan is unaware about the fate of his jail petition as he is in a death cell since 2010. Upon this, I contacted the SC’s criminal branch to know the status of his plea. However, it was found that (SC) did not receive any jail petition on his behalf," says female lawyer Aysha Tasneem, who is pursuing jail petitions on behalf of convicted persons in the apex court for the last couple of years.



However, she says that Sukkur jail authorities are claiming that Khan’s jail petition was sent to the apex court in 2006 but the SC registrar office has completely verified the record and said that no jail petition was filed on behalf of the convicted person.

Finally, Tasneem again contacted death row prisoner Khan in Sukkur jail to move a fresh bail application in the top court, which was entertained by the SC office on December 26, 2017. However, the plea is yet to be fixed for hearing because the police did not submit the record of the case, she added.

A senior official in SC also confirmed that despite issuance of two reminders, the Sindh police have yet to submit the record of the case.

“Whenever we receive the police record, the case will be fixed before the bench immediately,” he further stated.

Tasneem told that this is not the first case, wherein the jail petition was filed late as she already pursued a case of a death row prisoner, whose jail application was received after 11 years of imprisonment and subsequently, the same individual had successfully been acquitted from the apex court.

The situation in jails of interior Sindh is worst as I have been told that a number of death row prisoners are languishing in prisons for several years without knowing the status of their jail applications. Either their pleas have not been filed or they are ignorant about the concept of filing jail petitions, she added.

Recently, SC judge Justice Asif Saeed Khosa had announced that almost 250 criminal appeals were pending in the apex court, which would also be decided soon. Legal experts lauded Justice Khosa's efforts in deciding thousands of criminal appeals, wherein most of the people successfully got acquittal for last three years.



Likewise, a senior official in SC told that due to increase in acquittal rate, the institution of bail petitions have been increased as 900 applications were received last year. Up to 1,846 bail petitions were pending in the apex court till February 15. The official says that there will be an announcement in the apex court soon that there are zero criminal cases pending. However, civil pending cases are more than 35,000 in SC.

Meanwhile, the SC on Thursday acquitted two prisoners accused of murdering a person in 2009. They were acquitted after almost 10 years.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa heard the appeal of convicted persons who were accused of being involved in the murder of a person in 2009.

The Balochistan High Court had maintained life imprisonment of the two accused which is now reverted by the Supreme Court over lack of evidence in the case.

Haji Muhammad Hashim and Gulab were both granted bail. Haji’s probable date of release was April 8, 2024, and the accused served jail period for almost eight years.

Gulab’s date of release was scheduled for September 30, 2029, and he served four years in jail.

The SC observed that the incident had not witnesses and the bench acquitted the convicted persons by giving them benefit of doubt.

The date of sentence for Haji was in 2008 and Gulab in 2013.

Only recently, on April 3, the SC acquitted a woman of the charges of murdering her parents and brother. The apex court also acquitted two other convicts who had earlier been handed death sentence.