On Jan 23, 2019, a SC bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Asif Saeed Khosa termed the Lahore High Court (LHC) decision to acquit Hussain null and void and directed to nab the accused from the court.
Siddiqi, 24, was stabbed more than two dozen times on a busy Lahore Street while she was picking her six-year-old sister Sofia Siddiqui from school on May 3, 2016.
She was attacked by her class fellow Hussain for reportedly rejecting a proposal. A Lahore judicial magistrate handed down seven-year rigorous imprisonment to Hussain after finding him guilty of attempted murder on July 29, 2017.
However, a sessions court in March 2018 set aside the minor penalties of the convict and commuted the sentenced to five years.
Last year, the Lahore High Court acquitted the convict on lack of evidence.
Former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar had taken a suo motu notice of the acquittal in June 2018 and forwarded the appeal to another two-member SC bench led by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa.
Enraged at the then chief justice’s taking cognizance of the matter, the accused’s father, an influential lawyer, had moved a resolution to the Lahore High Court Bar Association, demanding that the country’s top court make rules on suo motu powers.
