ISLAMABAD - The review petition against acquittal of 13 accused in the Mukhtara Mai gang rape case of 2002 has been fixed for hearing in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The top court’s 3-judge bench headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed will take up the review petition of Mai for hearing. The other members of the bench include Justice Faisal Arab and Justice Ijazul Ahsan.

Mai was gang raped in June 2002 on orders of a ‘jirga’ as ‘punishment’ after her younger brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival family. She was dragged into the house of a Mastoi tribesman in her native village of Meerwala, in Muzaffargarh district.

Mai had accused 14 men in her rape case and Anti-Terrorism Court had awarded death sentences to 6 men in August 2002. These 6 men included 4 for rape and 2 being part of the jirga which ordered for the rape. The remaining 8 were released.

However, Lahore High Court had set aside the ATC ruling and acquitted 5 of the accused and converted the death sentence of Abdul Khaliq to life imprisonment.

Mai challenged the LHC’s ruling in Supreme Court. On 21 April 2011, the top court with majority of two to one rejected the appeal challenging the LHC judgment.

On May 19, 2011, Mai filed a review petition against the top court’s judgment stating that the court’s verdict was a great miscarriage of justice because it stemmed from misreading and non-reading of the material evidence on the file.

According to Mai’s counsel Aitzaz Ahsan, there are at least 9 pieces of evidences not been noticed which are enough to prove that the 2011 judgment could not be sustained and was therefore contrary to the fundamental rules of dispensation of justice.

The review petition of Mai pleaded that the court should review and recall the judgment and grant relief as prayed in the titled criminal appeal.

She has also requested the court to constitute a larger bench to hear her review petition, contending that she is aggrieved of and dissatisfied with the findings of the court.

“The findings, reasons and considerations of this court that led to the conclusion as stated herein before are based on erroneous assumptions of material facts and misreading of the record”, the review petition stated further, contending that the judges had misapplied the principles relating to appeals against acquittal.

“What has to be understood at the outset is that in rape cases, the victim’s own statement is the crucial litmus test for the outcome of the case,” it stated.

If the victim is found credible and a person of good character and deeds, her testimony alone would be sufficient to sustain a conviction, the review petition further stated.

Mai submitted that Hazoor Bakhsh and Ghulam Hussain, being close relatives of the petitioner, could not pass the test of independent witnesses; therefore, recovery of the pistol from the accused should be disbelieved.

It was further pleaded that the majority judges had upset the settled law by holding that even where a prosecution witness is not produced, his or her statement recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC could still be used and that too under Section 172 (2) of the CrPC and that inference could be drawn from it for the purposes, or under Article 129(g) of the Qanoon-e-Shahadat Order, 1984.

“The observation of majority judges that suggestions during cross-examination could be considered against the accused only if he/she had taken a statutory defence is contrary to the settled law on this point, especially when there is no ‘statutory defence’ to the offence of rape,” it argued.