Bhutto reference will be heard by the Supreme Court Twelve years after it was Filed

ISLAMABAD: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court is scheduled to consider a case brought forth in opposition to the sentence and hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the founding chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party and the country’s first democratically elected prime minister.

On April 2, 2011, Asif Ali Zardari, the country’s former president, requested the top court’s opinion on reopening the trial that resulted in Bhutto’s hanging on April 4, 1979, by means of a presidential reference made possible by Article 186 of the Constitution.

He was ousted on July 5, 1977, following a military takeover headed by then-army chief Ziaul Haq. The PNA, or Pakistan National Alliance, had been agitating for months over the results of rigged elections that March of that year.

Nine opposition parties, including JI (Jamaat-e-Islami) and the late Asghar Khan’s Tehreek-e-Istiqlal, came together to form the PNA as Bhutto sought a two-thirds majority to propose constitutional amendments to the 1973 Constitution.

This means that the case will be heard by a nine-member apex court bench chaired by Chief Justice Faez Isa more than 44 years after Bhutto was executed at the Adiala jail in Rawalpindi and more than 12 years after the case was filed.

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The reference was heard for the fifth time in total on November 11, 2012, by an 11-member bench led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry at the time.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari petitioned the Supreme Court earlier on Monday, requesting a live broadcast of the hearing. Farooq H Naek, a prominent PPP leader and attorney, filed the petition.