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Former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. — AFP/FileISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will broadcast live the hearing of the 12-year-old presidential reference on revisiting the controversial death sentence awarded to Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
A nine-member larger apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa and including Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminud Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, and Justice Musarrat Hilali is expected to take up the reference at 11.30pm today (Tuesday).
"Court proceedings of the Presidential Reference No 1 of 2011 will be broadcast live and can be accessed on the official website and the YouTube channel of the Supreme Court," stated a communique issued by the top court today.
The decision to fix the instant case was made under Section 2(1) of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, by a three-member committee comprising CJP Isa, Justice Masood and Justice Ahsan.
The top court had formed a two-judge panel — comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar — to decide on the live telecast of the reference.
Former president Asif Ali Zardari, on April 2, 2011, had approached the apex court through a presidential reference under Article 186 of the Constitution to seek its opinion on revisiting the trial of the PPP founder.
Previously, an 11-member larger bench of the apex court, headed by former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had conducted five hearings on the presidential reference — whose last hearing was held on November 11, 2022.
PPP seeks live telecast
Ahead of the crucial hearing, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari Monday moved the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking a live broadcast of the reference.
Bilawal, in his civil miscellaneous application, had urged the court to allow the live telecast of the hearing "so that the whole of Pakistan could hear it".
The PPP chairman had also voiced his expectation from the chief justice to "rectify constitutional mistakes".
"The whole nation knows Quaid-e-Awaam was innocent [...] The nation has to be informed who were the facilitators behind [Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's] murder," Bilawal said during a political gathering in Kohat district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Sunday.
"We hope that justice would be done with the history," he added.
