A single bench of the Lahore High Court on Friday referred two petitions to the chief justice, seeking the reopening of cases of Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed and Bhagat Singh, with the request to fix them before a full bench.
Advocate Abdul Rasheed Qureshi, counsel for the petitioner, submitted before the court of Justice Shujat Ali Khan that it was a matter of national interest that the cases be reopened and fixed before a full bench. Bhagat Singh had fought for independence of the subcontinent and was hanged by the British on March 23, 1931, he submitted.
Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi of the Save Judiciary Committee, submitted in his petition, that Singh was initially sentenced to life but later awarded death sentence “in a fake case,” he said. The Punjab governor at the time had constituted the tribunal through an ordinance that was valid only for four months. The tribunal began proceedings in the case six days before its tenure was set to expire. It did not record statements of 450 witnesses. Nor did it hear arguments from the defence, he said.
Qureshi requested the court to reopen Singh’s case and declare him innocent.
He also requested the court to reopen Ilmuddin’s case as a biased bench comprising non-Muslims had awarded Ilmuddin death sentence in 1929 for killing a blasphemer.
In both cases, the judges’ decisions violated norms of justice. Qureshi requested the court to acquit both.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 25th, 2013.