Supreme Court reserves NRO judgement, detailed verdict to be announced at 1 pm today

• Subscribe to PCF Networked Blog Daily Updates 
• Subscribe to our Twitter / Google / Yahoo Daily Updates

The Supreme Court of Pakistan

The Supreme Court reserved its judgement in the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) implementation case on Tuesday, a private news channel reported today. The judgement was reserved by a five-member bench, headed by Justice Saeed Khosa, hearing the case. On January 3, the court had expressed disappointment over the non-implementation of the court’s judgement and had given the government time till January 10 (today) to file their reply in the case. On receiving no reply, the court passed its verdict.

The detailed verdict will be announced at 1pm today.

National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chief Fasih Bukhari appeared before the court and said that the body cannot investigate the case further as it does not fall under its jurisdiction. Bukhari was asked to state the progress on the implementation of the NRO verdict earlier in a hearing last month. Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq also appeared before the court and said that the law secretary is out of the country and cannot return due to his ill health. He requested the court to wait for the law secretary to return before passing a judgement, but the bench ignored his request.

Justice Khosa observed that the court was not hearing the case to decide the fate of any particular person, and it was only being heard to see if the court’s judgement was implemented or not. On December 16, 2009, the Supreme Court had declared the NRO to be void ab initio (void from the start), thus leaving those pardoned under the ordinance as fair game for investigators. The federation had challenged the NRO verdict in the middle – but on November 24, a 17-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, swiftly dismissed the review petition.

Enticing Fury

Pakistan Cyber Force

Follow PCF on Facebook

Follow PCF on Twitter