SC rejects rape victim Mukhtaran Mai’s review appeal

ISLAMABAD — The Supreme Court dismissed a review appeal filed by Mukhtaran Mai against the acquittal of 13 people accused in her gang-rape case.

A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed and comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Maqbool Baqar heard the review appeal filed by Mukhtaran Mai.

Justice Gulzar Ahmed observed that the points raised in the petition may be looked at in another case. He remarked that the points raised in the application could not form the basis of a review petition.

Only a mistake or mistakes in a ruling can be highlighted for reconsideration in a review petition, he added.

He advised that the petition should be shortened and asked the petitioner to shorten the review petition or it will drag on for 10 years.

Mukhtaran Mai’s lawyer, Aitizaz Ahsan, informed the court that the Lahore High Court (LHC) in its 2005 verdict had stated that no injuries resulting from a sexual assault were visible on Mai’s body even though witness statements said otherwise.

Mai had been gang-raped in June 2002 on the orders of a jirga (village council) as a ‘punishment’ after her younger brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival clan.

She had accused 14 men of being involved in the rape. In August 2002, an anti-terrorism court had sentenced six men to death — four for raping Mai and two for being part of that jirga (village council). The remaining eight were released.

Later, the Lahore High Court’s Multan bench, on separate appeals, acquitted five of the convicts and converted the death sentence of Abdul Khaliq to life imprisonment.

Mai had subsequently challenged their acquittal in the top court. However, the court, in its April 2011 verdict, had rejected her appeal by a majority of two to one — much to the consternation of rights activists.

Mai, whose ordeal and struggle for justice has seen her become the voice of oppressed women, sought the constitution of a larger bench, instead of a three-judge bench.

In her review petition, Mai stated that the apex court’s verdict was a great miscarriage of justice because it stemmed from a misreading and non-reading of material evidence on file. —