Justice Rabbani to head Supreme Court Monitoring Cell

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Friday nominated Justice Ghulam Rabbani as head of the "Supreme Court Monitoring Cell" to keep an eye on the proceedings and progress of the revived cases under the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in pursuance of December 16 verdict of the apex court.
Earlier, on December 16, a 17-member larger bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had declared the NRO void ab intio being against the national interest as it was meant "to give benefit to a class of people" and ultra vires of Constitution.
The court had held that "as a consequence of the said declaration, all steps taken, actions suffered, and all orders passed by whatever authority, any orders passed by the courts of law including the orders of discharge and acquittals recorded in favour of the accused persons, are also declared never to have existed in the eyes of law and resultantly of no legal effect".
However, after striking down the NRO, the Court declared it will monitor the proceedings of revived cases through Monitoring Cells. During the course of hearing of the petitions against the NRO, a list of 248 persons, who benefited from the NRO within and outside the country, was submitted by the NAB. According to the short order, a Monitoring Cell headed by the CJP or a judge of SC nominated by him should be established to monitor the proceedings in the cases under the NAB Ordinance.
Likewise, similar Monitoring Cells shall be set up in the High Courts of all the provinces comprising of the Chief Justice of the respective province or Judges of the concerned High Courts to be nominated by them to monitor the progress and the proceedings in cases in which the accused persons had been acquitted or discharged under Section 2 of the NRO, said the order.
In this respect, Chief Justice Sindh High Court Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmani, Chief Justice Lahore High Court Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif, Chief Justice Peshawar High Court, Justice Ijaz Afzal Khan and Chief Justice Balochistan High Court Justice Qazi Faez Essa have been nominated as the heads of the Monitoring Cells. In addition, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has nominated Sajid Mehmood Qazi, Additional Registrar Supreme Court of Pakistan, as Co-ordinator of the Monitoring Cell in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.