ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Saqib Nisar on Friday constituted a larger bench to hear appeals filed by members of civil society in the Shahzeb Khan murder case.
The next hearing of the case would be on Saturday (January 13). The three-member bench would be headed by CJP and would comprise of Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Faisal Arab at the Karachi Registry of the Supreme Court (SC).
Earlier, civil society members had filed a petition with the SC against the Sindh High Court (SHC) ruling which pardoned Shahrukh Jatoi from a death penalty along with other convicted persons in the Shahzeb murder case in 2012.
The civil society members, included Jibran Nasir, Jamshed Raza Mahmood, Afiya Shehrbano Zia, Naeem Sadiq, Nazim Fida Hussain Haji, Zulfiqar Shah, Aquila Ismail, Fahim Zaman Khan and Naziha Syed Ali. They filed a criminal petition in the Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry against the SHC’s November 28, 2017 ruling which stated that the murder case did not fall within the jurisdiction of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
The petitioners had stated in their petition that they were legally empowered to file a petition for leave to appeal as they were residents of Karachi’s posh Defence Housing Authority, where the murder took place. They said that the incident was not an individual act of violence, but it also carried serious repercussions for the society as it created fear and panic among the citizens of the port city.
Jatoi, belonging to an influential feudal family, and other defendants in the Shahzeb Khan murder case, were released from custody on bail on December 23, 2017 after Shahzeb’s father submitted an affidavit in court to support Jatoi’s bail plea. Shahzeb was gunned down by Jatoi in Karachi on December 25, 2012.