The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed a trial court in Rawalpindi to conduct hearing of the drag race case in transparent manner that took lives of five persons. During the course of hearing, Additional Advocate General Punjab Muhammad Hanif Khattana submitted a report before a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, saying that the accused was under trail in a trial court in Rawalpindi.
Khattana informed the bench that during trial of the case, Additional Session Judge Rawalpindi had replaced Section 302 of PPC, under which the accused was booked, with Section 322 by declaring the offence as accidental. On the occasion, Hamid Khan, counsel for Bahria Town owner Malik Riaz, apprised the bench that heirs of the five deceased had pardoned the accused by taking compensation.
It is worth mentioning that Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken suo motu notice of the death of five persons in the race after release of a video on a private television channel showing a car racer losing control over his car and hitting spectators resulting in the death of five persons on December 9 last year. The SC while directing the trial court to conduct hearing of the case in transparent manner disposed of the suo motu case.