Govt plea for larger bench against army court sentences rejected.

PESHAWAR -- A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday rejected the plea of the federal government to constitute a larger bench for hearing over 200 petitions against the conviction of suspected militants by military courts.

Chief Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Abdul Shakoor heard scores of lawyers appearing for the petitioners and federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments over an application of the government seeking the formation of a larger bench to hear petitions insisting in the past, different division benches had given conflicting judgments.

The bench fixed Nov 26 for hearing into the petitions most of which have challenged death sentence awarded to petitioners or their close relatives.

PHC bench will hear over 200 petitions of convicts on 26th

The court has been conducting in-camera proceedings in the petitions related to military court convictions.

Advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt appeared for the provincial government, while additional attorney general Qazi Babar Irshad and Aamir Jawed represented the federal government, including ministries of law and justice and defence.

Several lawyers, including Shabbir Hussain Gigyani, Ziaur Rehman Tajik, Arif Jan, Danyal Asad Chamkani, Barrister Amirullah Chamkani, Naveed Akhtar, Sajeed Afridi and others defended petitioners.

The representatives of the federal and KP governments contended that in the past, benches headed by then chief justices, Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Yahya Afridi, had upheld over 65 judgments of military courts and rejected several petitions against them.

They added that last year, a bench headed by current Chief Justice Waqar Seth had accepted around 75 petitions and thus, setting aside conviction in those cases by military courts.

The government representatives said the judgment was challenged in the Supreme Court, which had suspended it but the appeals had been pending decision since then.

They wondered if the bench would follow the judgment delivered last year or earlier. The government representatives requested the court to constitute a larger bench to decide the question.

They said the Supreme Court in its judgment regarding military courts had laid down certain parameters for a high court to entertain a petition against a military court judgment. They also added that the powers of the high court in that regard were very limited and could not be exercised in each and every case.

Lawyers for petitioners opposed the government's plea saying the...

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