Bilawal moves Supreme Court seeking live broadcast of ZA Bhutto reference case

• SC to hear presidential reference against ZA Bhutto trial on Dec 12.
• Ex-president Zardari had sought top court opinion on revisiting trial. 
• SC  formed two-member panel to decide on hearing's live telecast.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari Monday moved the Supreme Court of Pakistan seeking a live broadcast of the hearing of the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto reference today (Tuesday).

A nine-member larger apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa is set to hear the the 12-year-old presidential reference on revisiting the controversial death sentence awarded to the former prime minister.

The decision to fix the instant case was made under Section 2(1) of the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Act, 2023, by a three-member committee comprising CJP Isa, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.

Last week, the top court formed a two-judge panel — comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar — to decide on the live telecast of the said reference.

The panel will submit its report to CJP Isa on December 11, which if approved, would be the second time in the country's judicial history that a case is broadcast live.

The development comes as former president Asif Ali Zardari, on April 2, 2011, had approached the apex court through a presidential reference under Article 186 of the Constitution to seek its opinion on revisiting the trial of the PPP founder.

Previously, an 11-member larger bench of the apex court, headed by former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, had conducted five hearings in the presidential reference — whose last hearing was held on November 11, 2022.

Bilawal, in his civil miscellaneous application, has urged the court to allow the live telecast of the hearing "so that the whole of Pakistan could hear it".

A day earlier, the PPP chairman voiced his expectation from the chief justice to "rectify constitutional mistakes".

"The whole nation knows Quaid-e-Awaam was innocent [...] The nation has to be informed who were the facilitators behind [Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's] murder," Bilawal said during a political gathering in Kohat district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Sunday.

"We hope that justice would be done with the history," he added.

— With additional input from APP