Juvenile murder accused questions ATC jurisdiction.

PESHAWAR -- A juvenile person on Thursday questioned the jurisdiction of an anti-terrorism court for his trial over the murder of an alleged blasphemer inside a courtroom last year and sought the transfer of his case to the district and sessions judge for hearing under the juvenile justice law.

The ATC judge issued notice to the government and fixed Feb 1 for hearing into the petition of the undertrial teenager, who is the prime accused in the case and had allegedly been arrested soon after the murder inside the courtroom at Peshawar's Judicial Complex on July 29, 2020.

The court had indicted the petitioner and two other accused, including junior lawyer Tufail Zia and cleric Wasiullah, on Oct 14. All three had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Shabbir Hussain Gigyani, lawyer for the petitioner, said undisputedly, his client was a child in line with the definition given in the Juvenile Justice System Act (JJSA), 2018.

He said under Section 4 of the JJSA, certain courts had been notified having exclusive jurisdiction to try children's cases.

The lawyer said that the law's provision in question declared that the government in consultation with the relevant high court should by notification in the official gazette establish or designate one or more juvenile courts.

Says juvenile court should try him for killing alleged blasphemer

He added that the law provided that the juvenile court should have exclusive jurisdiction to try cases in which a juvenile was accused of commission of an offence.

The counsel pointed out that on Jan 29, 2019, the provincial government had issued a notification whereby only district and sessions judges, additional district and sessions judges ad judicial magistrates had been notified as juvenile courts, whereas the ATCs had not been notified as such.

He contended that due to a lack of jurisdiction, the ATC had no power to try a juvenile accused.

The counsel said under Section 23 of...

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