ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has resumed hearing a long-pending presidential reference seeking to revisit the 1979 controversial death sentence awarded to former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

A nine-member larger bench of the apex court took up the reference. The case proceedings are being broadcast live.

Headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, the larger bench consists of Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Musarrat Hilali.

The reference was filed on behalf of former president Asif Ali Zardari on April 2, 2011, for an opinion on revisiting the death sentence awarded to the former premier under the Supreme Court’s advisory jurisdiction.

It was filed before the top court under Article 186 (1 and 2) of the Constitution, which empowers the president to refer any question of public importance to the Supreme Court to seek its opinion on an issue.

The reference was last heard by an 11-judge panel, headed by then chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, in Jan 2012.

In March 1978, a four-member bench of Lahore High Court had awarded the death sentence to Bhutto, which was later challenged in the top court. In a four to three split verdict, a seven-judge SC had bench upheld the sentence during the military regime of the then-army chief Gen Ziaul Haq in March 1979.

Ahead of the hearing today, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Sherry Rehman and other senior party leaders arrived at the apex court.

At the outset of the proceedings, PPP counsel Farooq H. Naek submitted a request in court on behalf of Bilawal, saying that the later wanted to become a respondent in the reference. The CJP said the SC could hear Bilawal as a family member and even as a political party.

Referring to Bilawal plea seeking live telecast of the hearing, which was filed a day earlier, Justice Isa said the court had decided the same prior to the submission of the application.

Subsequently, the judge directed Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan to read out the presidential reference and asked who had filed the reference.

“President Asif Ali Zardari had filed the reference on the advice of the federal cabinet,” Awan responded, adding that the reference had not been withdrawn by any president after Zardari.

“I must regret on behalf of the SC that it was not listed earlier because we have a policy now of first in first out unless there is some urgency in a particular case,” Justice Isa remarked.