A member of Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA), Mohammad Azhar Siddique has moved a petition before Chief Justice of Lahore High Court (LHC) seeking a week's time to complete the inspection of the record of Late ZA Bhutto's murder trial.
Earlier, the chief justice allowed Azhar to inspect the record after de-sealing it. Siddiqui undertook to pay the necessary charges required for inspection of the complete record including, FIR, Challan form under Section 173 of the CrPC all statements recorded under Section
161 and 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code, statements of about 40 witnesses recorded/cross examined, statement recorded under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code, all Bail Applications and orders, report of judicial inquiry conducted by former Justice Shafi-ur-Rehman.
These also include the application filed on behalf of late ZAB objecting the inclusion of Justice Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain in the Bench on being biased, Miscellaneous Applications/petitions filed by late ZAB and others and final Order dated March 18, 1978 by virtue of which, he was ordered to be hanged. The LHCBA member in his petition stated that the record is voluminous and was procured in two large boxes.
During this short span of time he was unable to complete inspection of the file and only order sheet, showing day-to-day hearing, consisting of 75 pages was inspected by him and notes had also been taken. After thoroughly examining the order sheet, about 74 hearings from September 13, 1977 to March 2, 1978 were concluded, including cross examination of about 40 witnesses and statements under Section 342 Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 of ZAB, Mian Mohammad Abbas, Ghulam Mustafa, Arshad Iqbal, Rana Iftikhar Ahmad.
Two miscellaneous applications alleging bias on the Bench was submitted by late ZAB for transfer of hearing to some other Bench or sending back the trial to the session, were also filed before the Bench. The petitioner said that he wanted to file a constitutional petition under Article 184 (3) before the Supreme Court of Pakistan for re-opening of this controversial case, therefore, thorough and absorbed inspection to the record is necessary for the purpose and at least further seven days of time would be needed to complete the task.