ISLAMABAD: A seven-member larger bench of the Supreme Court Friday announced its judgment on the Definition of terrorism and what cases could be tried in the Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATCs) under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997.Authored by the Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, the judgment decreed that the release of a perpetrator on the basis of reconciliation was irreconcilable.It declared that in an appropriate case, keeping in view the peculiar circumstances of the case, compounding of a coordinate compoundable offence may be considered by a court towards reduction of the sentence, within the permissible limits, passed for commission of a non-compoundable offence.“In a terrorism case, a reduction in the sentence will not be automatically reduced after reconciliation between the parties,” it added.The apex court ruled that it would be the court’s discretion to consider reducing the offender’s sentence. The crime of terrorism is different from other crimes. The apex court further remarked that the trial court will consider reduction of the sentence after reconciliation in the terror case.Constituted in April to settle the issue, the bench had reserved the judgment after discussing the ramifications of Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 and “ambiguities” in the law making its implementation problematic.The court had also deliberated on whether a settlement between the parties in a ‘terrorism’ case was admissible before the court.The verdict noted that the offence of ‘terrorism’ defined in Section 6 and punishable under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 was not a compoundable offence but in many cases the offence of terrorism was committed simultaneously with commission of some other offence and such other coordinate offence may sometimes be a compoundable offence.
10-12-2019, 12:58 PM
Definition of terrorism: Convict can?t be released on basis of reconciliation
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