The Lahore High Court on Tuesday constituted a three-member full bench to hear a petition filed by former military ruler retired Gen Pervez Musharraf, challenging the trial against him and formation of a special court that sentenced him to death earlier this month.
Justice Mazahir Ali Akbar Naqvi will chair the bench while Justice Amir Bhatti and Justice Masood Jahangir will be a part of it. The newly constituted bench will initiate hearing of the petition on January 9, 2020.
Earlier this month Musharraf had filed an application in the LHC, urging it to halt the special court from sentencing him in absentia. In the petition, the former dictator had challenged the formation of the special court holding his trial under charges of high treason and legal flaws committed in the procedure.
On December 17, just three days after he filed the petition, Musharraf, who is currently abroad, was handed a death penalty by the special court in Islamabad, after the three-member bench convicted him in a treason case.
One day after he was sentenced to death, LHC's Justice Naqvi had recommended a full bench to hear the petition and had referred the matter to the chief justice for a final decision.
Musharraf was booked in the treason case in 2013 for imposing a state of emergency in the country on November 3, 2007, and suspending the Constitution till the mid of December 2007.
He was declared a proclaimed offender and later sentenced under Article 6 of the Constitution, marking the first time in Pakistan's history that a military chief was declared guilty of high treason and handed a death sentence.
Article 6 of the Constitution says: "Any person who abrogates or subverts or suspends or hold in abeyance, or attempts or conspires to abrogate or subvert or suspend or hold in abeyance the Constitution by use of force or show force or by any other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of high treason."
