{"id":26329,"date":"2023-11-19T23:10:06","date_gmt":"2023-11-19T23:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/sindh-disowns-appeal-of-verdict-on-military-trials\/"},"modified":"2023-11-19T23:10:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-19T23:10:06","slug":"sindh-disowns-appeal-of-verdict-on-military-trials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/sindh-disowns-appeal-of-verdict-on-military-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"Sindh \u2018disowns\u2019 appeal of verdict on military trials"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

KARACHI \/ ISLAMABAD: Mystery shrouds a purported appeal by the Sindh government \u2014 challenging the Supreme Court decision to strike down<\/a> military trials of civilians under the Pakistan Army Act 1952 \u2014 after the caretaker provincial government distanced itself from the development on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The statement from the CM House came two days after it was reported<\/a> that an appeal had landed in the Supreme Court on behalf of the provincial government. The current status of the appeal is \u201cinfructuous\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to a statement issued by the CM\u2019s House on Saturday, \u201cThe caretaker Sindh government has clarified that appeal in \u2018Trial of Civilians before Military Courts\u2019 case has not been filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

A letter penned by the Sindh advocate general on Nov 17 informed the principal secretary to the chief minister, the caretaker provincial law minister, and the law and parliamentary affairs secretary that no appeal in the said matter was filed. Sources told Dawn<\/em> that the summary to appeal against the top court verdict was not even placed before caretaker CM Maqbool Baqar \u2014 who is himself a former SC judge.<\/p>\n

\n

Caretaker CM, provincial law officer \u2018not in the loop\u2019; 17-page appeal drafted by lawyer after consultations with bureaucrats<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2018Several sessions\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interestingly, the 17-page appeal drafted by Jahanzeb Awan, head of litigation at Karachi-based Haidermota and Co, materialised after \u2018several sessions\u2019.<\/p>\n

Sources said that the provincial bureaucracy briefed Mr Awan about the case to prepare an appeal.<\/p>\n

They said an appeal against the SC short order was finalised after a few sessions with the lawyer and was ready to be filed in the Supreme Court. The doc\u00aduments annexed with the appeal included the short order, copy of the grounds of the petition filed before the bench, co\u00adm\u00adments of the appellant, relevant extracts from the Pakistan Army Act, the International Court of Justice Review and Reconsideration Act 2021, copy of press releases of the Inter-Services Pub\u00adlic Relations \u2014 the media wing of the army \u2014 and foreign ministry, list of under-custody individuals, copies of the FIRs registered against the suspects of May 9 violence, affidavits of the appellant, and the AOR.<\/p>\n

Mr Awan was approa\u00adc\u00adhed for comment and said he would get back to Dawn with his version, but rem\u00adained unavailable until the time of going to press.<\/p>\n

After it came to the top court, the appeal was entrusted to advocate on record (AOR) Mohammad Sharif Janjua. Talking to Dawn<\/em>, Mr Janjua said that initially he was appointed as AOR in this matter and the \u2018vakalatnama<\/em>\u2019 (power of attorney) was also issued in his name.<\/p>\n

He was supposed to make the appeal in order to file it before the Institution Branch of the Supreme Court, but it came as a surprise to him that the \u201cappeal was transmitted to someone else\u201d.<\/p>\n

The copy of the appeal was then \u2018leaked\u2019 to the media making headlines in the broadcast, digital and print media.<\/p>\n

However, sources said that the advocate general office was not in the loop and since it did not accord consent to the appeal, therefore, it could not be numbered by the court\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n

In the letter, the incharge Supreme Court Cell of the Office of the Advocate General Sindh clarified that the appeal against the trial of civilians in the military court has not been filed before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Former senior puisne judge of Islamabad High Court Noorul Haq Qureshi, who also hails from Sindh, said retired Justice Baqar \u201ccommands the respect of the Supreme Court [judges] for being an upright judge\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said Mr Baqar might have thought that being a caretaker chief minister, it was not his domain to file an appeal against the apex court\u2019s order and that too in a case that does not pertain to the province.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven otherwise, an appeal can be filed by an aggrieved person and party. The Sindh government was not aggrieved of the judgement on the trial of civilians in the military courts as there are very rare instances of court-martialing a civilian in the province\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the bureaucracy was behind preparing the petition and tried to file it without the approval of the chief minister,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n

According to him, the counsel who drafted the petition was not doing it on his own. \u201cSomeone must have briefed him after engaging him in the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KARACHI \/ ISLAMABAD: Mystery shrouds a purported appeal by the Sindh government \u2014 challenging the Supreme Court decision to strike down military trials of civilians under the Pakistan Army Act 1952 \u2014 after the caretaker provincial government distanced itself from the development on Saturday. The statement from the CM House came two days after it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/1907235849fa6dc.jpg?r=072404","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}