Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court will tomorrow begin hearing petitions challenging a controversial order issued last year by President Pervez Musharraf to grant amnesty in corruption cases to slain former premier Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari.

A five-member bench headed by Chief Justice Abdul Hameed will hear petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated by Musharraf on October 5 last year, a day ahead of the presidential poll which he contested and swept while still in uniform.

The law benefited leaders of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) but did not cover leaders of the PML-N, including former premier Nawaz Sharif. It paved the way for Bhutto's return for self-exile on October 18 last year. She was assassinated on December 27 in Rawalpindi near here. In exchange for the quashing of graft cases against its leaders, the PPP did not boycott the presidential poll, giving Musharraf's re-election credibility. Following his re-election, Musharraf quit the post of Army Chief and took oath as a civilian President for a second five-year term.

The petitions challenging the NRO were filed by PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif, Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, retired bureaucrat Roedad Khan and former federal minister Mubashar Hassan.

Source : PTI