Lahore -


The Lahore High Court (LHC) Single Bench referred two petitions seeking reopening of executed cases of Ghazi Ilmuddin and Bhagat Singh to LHC Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial and recommended to constitute larger bench for their hearing here on Friday. Justice Shujaat Ali Khan of LHC was hearing the petitions. 
As proceeding started, the petitioner counsel appeared before the court and requested the court to form a full bench in larger public interest for the hearing of the cases of Ghazi Ilmuddin and Bhagat Singh.  He said Bhagat Singh was a freedom fighter and he fought for the independence of Sub-continent. But British Raj on March 23, 1931, holding a trial for involvement in a conspiracy hanged him.  Contending on the matter, the petitioner counsel said Singh was initially given life imprisonment but later he was awarded death sentence “in a case, which was fake.”
The petitioner Abdur Rasheed Qureshi said that Governor Punjab at that time had constituted the tribunal through an Ordinance, which was valid for four months and the tribunal started its proceedings six days prior to lapse of its tenure wherein it neither recorded statements of 450 witnesses nor did it listen to counter arguments from the defence side.  He contended Bhagat Singh was respected in the whole Sub-continent not only by Sikhs but by the Muslims also. The petitioner said Quaid-i-Azam twice paid him tributes during his speech in the central assembly.  He prayed to the court to reopen the case of Bhagat Singh and declare him as innocent.
Meanwhile, in another petitioner filed for the reopening of Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed, Qureshi said a partial and biased bench comprising non-Muslim judges heard the case and announced death sentence to great Muslim of that time –Ilmuddin Shaheed.  The British hanged him in 1929 for killing a blasphemer, the petitioner said. He said the decision was illegal. The judge referred both the cases to Chief Justice of Lahore High Court and recommended for constitution of larger bench for their hearing.