ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to decide within two weeks the pleas of human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, seeking the suspension of their sentence in the controversial social media posts case.<\/p>\n
Until the IHC decides upon the petitions, the matter will remain pending before the apex court, a three-judge SC, consisting of Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan and Justice Shafi Siddiqui, ordered.<\/p>\n
During the hearing, the couple\u2019s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi H, argued that the legal requirements were not met in the trial against his clients. He asserted that neither got the opportunity to be cross-examined and statements under Section 342 of the Criminal Procedure Code were also not recorded.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said that the IHC had kept his clients\u2019 pleas pending despite the passage of two months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich court should the accused go to if the high court denies relief or if the SC chooses not to go into the merits of the case,\u201d the counsel argued.<\/p>\n
At this, Justice Siddiqui wondered how the SC could interfere in a matter which fell under the jurisdiction of the high court.<\/p>\n
The lawyer contended that the SC could hear applications seeking the suspension of a sentence without the high court\u2019s final decision. He said that if the court asked him to, he could explain the circumstances his clients were facing.<\/p>\n
Justice Waheed, however, observed that the SC was aware of the circumstances the appellants were facing, since they had mentioned the details in their applications.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow there are two options: one is to direct the high court to decide the matter and the second is to give instructions to the high court and keep this application pending in the SC,\u201d Justice Waheed suggested.<\/p>\n
The lawyer suggested keeping the matter pending before the SC while issuing instructions to the IHC. In this way, the shadow of the SC will remain upon the high court, the counsel argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only the shadow of the Supreme Court, but also of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC),\u201d Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan observed. The judge also reminded that the IHC did not dismiss the request for the suspension of the sentences.<\/p>\n
Justice Afghan explained that if a high court rejected the request for suspension of sentence, then the SC could go into the merits of the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, the SC is the only superior court in the country,\u201d the couple\u2019s lawyer responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t say this. The FCC has been established under the Constitution and all lawyers appear before it regularly,\u201d Justice Afghan responded, adding that bringing amendments to the Constitution was Parliament\u2019s prerogative.<\/p>\n
The counsel, however, contended that the SC was the highest court to decide appeals in criminal matters. He contended that Imaan was like a sister to him and, above all, a daughter of this country.<\/p>\n
In December 2025, Imaan Mazari and her husband moved the Supreme Court to overturn the IHC\u2019s decision refusing interim relief in the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to decide within two weeks the pleas of human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, seeking the suspension of their sentence in the controversial social media posts case. Until the IHC decides upon the petitions, the matter will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}