Islamabad (Web Desk): Pakistan Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Monday filed a civil miscellaneous application to the Supreme Court (SC) for the live streaming of the hearing of reference, pertaining to the ZulifKar Ali Bhutto murder case.
The application has been moved by advocate Syed Rafaqat Hussain Shah. It stated that the reference was filed by the then president Asif Ali Zardari, father of the applicant, hence, he is the son of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and the grandson of Shaheed Zulifqar Aali Bhutto.
It said that the hearing of the reference was scheduled for December 12, and prayed that the applicant wanted that the hearing of this case should be live/on air, so that whole Pakistan could hear it.
It may be mentioned that a nine-member larger bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa and comprising Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Aminud Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Musarrat Hilali would take up the presidential reference, seeking to revisit the Zulifqar Ali Bhutto case for hearing on Tuesday.
On April 2, 2011, then-president Asif Ali Zardari approached the apex court through a presidential reference under Article 186 of the Constitution of Pakistan to seek its opinion on revisiting the trial of the PPP founder.
The last hearing of the reference took place on November 11, 2012.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who took over as president of Pakistan immediately after the fall of Dhaka in December 1971, and later became the prime minister after the 1973 Constitution, was removed from the government through the martial law imposed on July 5, 1977, led by General Ziaul Haq.
On September 3, he was arrested in the case of the March 1974 murder of Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri. He was released 10 days later after a court found the charges against him "contradictory and incomplete". He was rearrested on the same charges and arraigned before the Lahore High Court (LHC).
On March 18, 1978, ZA Bhutto was declared guilty of the murder and was sentenced to death.
The decision was challenged in the SC and on February 6, 1979, the top court voted 4-3 to issue a guilty verdict and upheld the LHC's decision.
On March 24, 1979, the SC dismissed the appeal and Gen Zia upheld the death sentence.
Zulifikar Ali Bhutto was hanged at the Rawalpindi Central Jail on April 4, 1979, and was buried at his family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Baksh, Larkana.
