SC suggests creation of three-member benches for early hearing of jail petitions

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court (SC) has proposed that Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed form three-judge benches to hear jail petitions for expeditious justice. 

Currently, around 2,500 jail petitions are pending in the apex court. Usually, a division bench of the apex court takes up jail petitions/criminal petitions but it can not pass the final order. 

A two-judge bench led by Justice Qazi Faez Isa, while hearing a jail petition, noted that in criminal petitions for leave to appeal/jail petitions are being listed for hearing and invariably the petitioner has, excluding the earned remissions, already served out about ten years of the sentence.

"If leave is granted by the time the appeal comes up for hearing a few more years will have elapsed. Therefore, if the appeal is allowed such relief, it would be illusory because by then the petitioner would have almost served out a life imprisonment sentence."

Under such circumstances, the court has directed the office to put up a note for the kind consideration of the chief justice proposing the constitution of three-member benches to hear criminal petitions/jail petitions in which the judgment is by a two-member bench of the high court, as only a three-member bench of this court can alter or set aside such judgment. 

"To ensure that an opportunity of hearing is granted to all concerned, a prior notice be issued to the complainant and, in case there are any injured, to such injured, and to the petitioner, in case he is unrepresented, to enable him to engage a counsel if he wants to engage one, and if he does not engage a counsel by a notified date then to automatically (before fixing the petition for hearing in court) appoint a counsel at state expense to represent him and such counsel to be provided with a copy of the petition." 

"This proposal will also substantially reduce the large number of such pending petitions. The office is directed to submit this paragraph for the kind consideration and appropriate orders of the Hon’ble Chief Justice."

Earlier in March, it was reported that 1.8 million cases are pending in various courts of Pakistan.

During a session of a standing committee in the National Assembly, officials said: “Supreme Court has 38,061 pending cases while 3,033 cases were finalised during the first two months of the year."