ZUBAIR QURESHI
A petition is filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) challenging the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) order of granting bail to 400 under-trial prisoners (UTP) from Adiala Jail of Rawalpindi on the threat of coronavirus outbreak. IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah while converting a letter by the UTP into a petition had granted bail to these prisoners on March 20 on the grounds that they could not be kept in jail when the country was facing threat of coronavirus outbreak and there was a national calamity. The apex court has constituted a five-member larger bench to hear the appeal challenging the exercise of “suo motu” powers by the Islamabad High Court granting bail to the UTP through an order dated March 20. The top court will take up the matter for hearing tomorrow (March 30, Monday). The bench consists of Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Qazi Muhammad Amin Ahmed. Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) Syed Nayab Hassan Gardezi moved the six-page appeal before the Supreme Court on behalf of Raja Muhammad Nadeem questioning whether the IHC had any jurisdiction to exercise suo motu powers. The petitioner Raja Muhammad Nadeem stated in his petition that 400 criminals/wrongdoers were released in an unprecedented and unconstitutional manner at the cost and expense of the constitutional rights of complainants in the respective FIRs. He added that the IHC had sought a report from the Superintendent, Central Prison, Rawalpindi, regarding the inmates whose cases were pending before the courts under jurisdiction of the Court Accordingly, the Jail Superintendent, Central Prison, Rawalpindi (Adiala Jail), submitted a report in the IHC that the authorized occupancy of the Central Prison, Rawalpindi, was 2,174 while the number of its present inmates is 5,001. The number of undertrial prisoners whose cases are pending before the courts under the jurisdiction of the High Court was 1,362. Majority of the incarcerated under trial prisoners were alleged to have committed offences which fell within the ambit of the non-prohibitory clause; and several convicted prisoners were above the age of 55 years and some suffered from serious illnesses, which could not be treated while incarcerated, the report had further said. According to the petitioner, the IHC chief justice in chamber exercising suo moto jurisdiction converted the report into a petition under Section 561-A of the Criminal Procedure Code on the ground that a national calamity had been declared by the federal government in the wake of coronavirus threat and that the situation in the overcrowded prisoners in the Adiala Jail is alarming. The IHC’s act of converting the letter into petition was in violation of the law and jurisdiction of the court, said the petitioner requesting the Supreme Court to set it aside.
