ATC cases.

AT long last, the legal system is moving towards a more pragmatic approach where the functioning of the Anti-Terrorism Courts is concerned. The Supreme Court has declared that under Section 23 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, ATCs can transfer any case that comes before them to ordinary criminal courts, provided they do so after taking cognisance of it. This ruling, the outcome of a petition against a verdict of the Sindh High Court's Sukkur bench in 2019, restored an earlier ATC order dated Nov 13, 2018, transferring a case before it to an ordinary court.

The ATCs were set up in 1997 to expedite the prosecution of offences perceived as falling within the ambit of 'terrorism'. Section 7 of the ATA stipulates that these courts must decide cases within seven days after indictment. In practice, however, even high-profile incidents remain pending for years in ATCs. The Nishtar Park bombing in Karachi, for example, took place in 2006; the ATC concerned had not decided the case until mid-2018, when the federal government transferred it to a military court for trial. In early 2019, it emerged there were 3,210 cases pending in the 53 ATCs functioning in Sindh. The main reason for the backlog in all ATCs across the country is that the ATA has defined 'terrorism' too broadly; its preamble provides for 'the prevention of terrorism...