SC settles jurisdictional dispute; says it cannot hear NAB cases, transfers them to FCC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday settled a jurisdictional dispute by declaring that it could not hear bail applications in pending National Accountability Bureau (NAB) appeals, and all such pending criminal appeals stood transferred to the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC).

“This court has no jurisdiction to take cognisance in the NAB cases in terms of Article 175F (a) of the Constitution, read with Section 32 and 32-A of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 (NAO),” stated a 30-page judgement authored by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, who headed a three-member bench that took up the matter.

The ruling also referred to arguments that the Supreme Court should not surrender its jurisdiction come what may, with the judges observing that courts could “not play to the gallery” for admiration, popularity and media commendations or for public perception, instead of adhering to the law and Constitution.

The duty of the court was to follow the law and not make decisions or assume a jurisdiction motivated by media mileage or public consumption, the bench noted.

“We are fully conscious and also sanguine that neither the court should assume the jurisdiction not vested in it by law nor it should abdicate its jurisdiction so vested under the law, rather, the jurisdiction is decided by the Constitution and the law itself. It is not a matter of surrender or conquest, but it is regulated by the law,” the judgement read.

The bench further observed that “unbridled judicial overreach, including flagrant misuse of suo motu powers as might is right in the past, unremittingly harmed the institutional image and its legitimacy and ultimately resulted in many legislative changes in the Constitution and the laws of our judicial system”.

“If a court does not possess statutory jurisdiction over a matter, it must step away without any intervention. No judge is robed, crowned or sceptered as a king to do whatever suits his whim and caprice as one-man rule,” the judgement concluded.

The ruling came on two petitions taken up by the bench headed by Justice Mazhar and comprising Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan.

One of the pleas was filed by the NAB, challenging an acquittal by the Peshawar High Court, and another by an under-trial prisoner, Aamir Mahmood, who challenged the Islamabad High Court’s refusal of his post-arrest bail.

During the hearing, NAB argued before the court that after the insertion of Section 32-A in the NAO, the Supreme Court did not have the jurisdiction to proceed and decide the criminal petitions under consideration for leave to appeal, and now, only the FCC had the jurisdiction in all NAB cases, including bail applications.

According to Section 32-A of the NAO, any convicted person, aggrieved by a decision on their appeal against their conviction by a high court, may file a second appeal before the FCC.

But, the counsel for Mahmood, Ibadur Rehman Lodhi, argued that his client’s case was distinct as he was an under-trial prisoner whose bail rejection was not a second appeal against his conviction.

More to follow ...