The Supreme Court will take up the intra-court appeals (ICAs) on March 25 against the decision to declare the military trial of 103 people allegedly involved in last year’s May 9 violence as unconstitutional”.
The ICAs filed by the federal government and another entity will be heard by a six-judge larger bench headed by Justice Aminuddin Khan.
The other judge on the bench will include Justices Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi, Shahid Waheed, Musarrat Hilali, and Irfan Saadat Khan.
Earlier, the ICAs were heard by a six-judge bench headed by Justice Sardar Tariq Masood. It suspended through a notice the decision of a five-member bench, headed by now retired Justice Ijazul Ahsan, to declare the trial of civilians in military courts as ultra vires the Constitution.
The five-member bench in October last year unanimously declared that civilians would be tried under ordinary criminal laws of the land in relation to such offences.
In its order with a majority of 4-1, that bench held that the trial of civilians under Section 2d(i) and 2d(ii) of the Army Act was “unconstitutional”.
