Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said on Wednesday that revelation of facts on Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto case before the apex court, are worrisome for the bench too, as judiciary is bound to remain within the ambit of Constitution. An eleven-judge special bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was hearing a presidential reference, sent by President Zardari, seeking its opinion over death sentence of Bhutto.
Justice Chaudhry expressed his dismay over the inability of police to produce the FIR record, registered against Bhutto at Ichhra police station, Lahore, and directed the IG Police Punjab to submit the record by Thursday.
"This is the responsibility to maintain complete record of the case, whereas a larger bench is sitting here and waiting for record but this policeman is totally oblivious of the whole situation," he remarked. Advocate General Punjab Khawaja Haris told the court that except availability of one register, all the investigation record was handed over to FIA. He said the then ASI Mohammad Aslam Sahi, investigation officer of the Ichhra police station Lahore handed over the record to Muhammad Akram, a former judge of Supreme Court in 1978.
The police file containing 112 pages went missing since then, Khawaja Haris said adding that it never handed back and ultimately police declared it untraced. The Chief Justice told him that the version given by him does not satisfy the legalities involved in the case.
"It was probably the period when the trial of the case was going on, then why the file was summoned by the agency. The file is vital to the proceedings of the case as it contained untraced evidences against Bhutto", he remarked. The CJP questioned when there was no criminal case in 1975, how it could be revived in the shape of such a case in 1977. Under law the prerogative of reinvestigation in any criminal case rested with the IGP but the incident was self explanatory that how decisions were taken, he observed.
Haris said that police was working on tracing the missing file at three places and assured the court that they might find the required record. Babar Awan, lead government lawyer in the case, read out some extracts of events from the judicial record of Lahore High Court (LHC) against Bhutto. He told the court that as per his information in November 1977, the witnesses recorded their statements partially even in the absence Bhutto.
He said it was indeed interesting that all these statements were recorded under Section 164 of CrPC, quoting the example of Masood Mahmood, the approver, whose statement had been recorded on oath. Awan said abusive language was used by former acting chief justice Molvi Mushtaq against Bhutto and his counsel. Even on one occasion, he added, the judge ordered the police to take out Bhuuto from the courtroom due to his unruly behaviour.
Referring to Bhutto's book, the lawyer told the court that Bhutto himself mentioned the words which the judge used against him - he was told 'to shut up and get out.' Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, a member of the bench asked Awan, if they came to a conclusion at the end that something was done then what they would have to do. He asked Awan to guide them over the issue.
Reading out from the record, Babar said on September, 1977, Ghulam Hussain, another approver, had moved an application for recording his statement before the district magistrate. The Chief Justice observed that the magistrate had also admitted that there was no evidence available. Awan said that the missing record from Ichira police station was handed over to CIA which was a department of Punjab police. He said from the first page of judicial record, the issue of bias was apparent.
The Chief Justice told him that he should also procure FIR registered in September 1981 over a firing incident on Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi and Molvi Mushtaq, in which the former was killed while the latter was injured. The counsel said that a special bench was constituted while special prosecutors were brought to execute a design of which the judiciary was a part. He said a commission was also formed to find out facts behind all the nonsense against the former prime minister but it could not find anything.
He said Muhammad Waris, one of the police investigation officers also admitted in his statement that he was under pressure to frame case but he could not find evidence. The Chief Justice said people who acted under pressure, did not know what they had been doing. He said that the trial judge was not even invited to take oath under PCO and was told that his name had been omitted. The bench was stunned when they were informed that a statement of late film star Muhammad Ali was also incorporated in the judicial record without any relevancy to the matter of arms recovery. The hearing was adjourned till Thursday.