Updated on
Summary SC has issued detailed verdict in the NRO review case.
The 31-page decision has been drafted by Justice Tassaduq Jillani.A 17-member bench of the Supreme Court had rejected the review petition filed on November 25.According to the released verdict, the Parliament had not validated the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).At the time of rejecting the the federal government’s review petition, the SC had said that the documents presented by the government’s counsel failed to make a case.Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said that the court had discarded the review petition because the documents presented “do not belong to the case”.The SC ruled that the federation had failed to establish that it was aggrieved by the court’s decision against the controversial ordinance.With the detailed judgment, the government would be under tremendous pressure to write the Swiss authorities seeking reopening the money laundering cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.On November 24, a 17-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, dismissed a review petition of the federation against the NRO and directed it to comply with its decision without any delay.“Before parting with this judgment, we may like to observe that the Court was conscious of the fact that although neither the Parliament approved the NRO as an act nor defended the law and rather did not oppose revival of criminal cases, this petition for review was filed on behalf of the federation; that despite repeated queries of the Court, learned counsel did not elaborate as to how the federation was an ‘aggrieved person’ or disclose any other ‘sufficient cause’ to fall within the parameters of the law regulating the review jurisdiction,” said the detailed judgment.It further addressed objections raised on every single paragraph of the NRO decision by the federation. The judgment also stated that it had given permission to former law minister Dr Babar Awan to represent the federation “so that if we find that a case for review is made, we will allow the application seeking permission to argue, which could only have been argued under the Supreme Court rules by the counsel who appeared for the federation in the main case.”“The court in Para 178 of the judgment merely held that the communications addressed by the then attorney general were unauthorised and the federal government was directed to take steps to seek the revival of the request in that context.Neither during the hearing of the main case, learned counsel for the federal government placed on record any instructions of the federation in this context nor during the hearing of this review petition, any such material was laid before this court which could persuade us to hold that the said communication by the then attorney general was duly authorised to warrant its review,” the judgment said.
