ISLAMABAD: The penal provisions under which former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and more than 40 other Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders have been charged by the Lahore police entail the death sentence, life imprisonment or several years in jail.
Anyone convicted under these sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) can’t walk out of prison for their whole life even if the death penalty is not imposed.
The most severe provision is Section 121 of the PPC, which states that whoever wages, attempts to wage or abets war against Pakistan shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to a fine.
The accused have also been charged under a section of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016, which ironically was enacted by the last Nawaz Sharif government. The section carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.
Section 121-A of the PPC states that “whoever within or without Pakistan conspires, abets or attempts to wage war against Pakistan or deprives Pakistan of the sovereignty of her territories, or conspires to overawe, by means of criminal force or the show of criminal force, the federal/provincial government, shall be punished with imprisonment for life. To constitute such conspiracy, it is not necessary that any act or illegal omission shall take place in pursuance of it.”
Section 123-A, meanwhile, provides for a maximum of ten years imprisonment. It states: “Whoever, within or without Pakistan, with intent to influence, or knowing it to be likely that he will influence, any person or the whole or any section of the public, in a manner likely to be prejudicial to the safety or ideology of Pakistan or to endanger the sovereignty of Pakistan in respect of all or any of the territories lying within its borders, shall by words, spoken or written, or by signs or visible representation abuse Pakistan or, condemn the creation of Pakistan, or advocates the curtailment or abolition of its sovereignty, whether by amalgamation with the territories of neighbouring States or otherwise, shall be punished with maximum rigorous imprisonment of ten years. When any person is proceeded so, the concerned court may make order about his association or communication with other persons, and of his activities in regard to dissemination of news, propagation of opinions, until such time as the case is finally decided.”
Section 124 says whoever, with the intention of including or compelling the President of Pakistan, or provincial governor, to exercise or refrain them from exercise of lawful powers, assaults, or wrongfully restrains, or attempts wrongfully to restrain or overawes, by means of criminal force or the show of criminal force, or attempts so to overawe them, shall be punished with maximum seven years imprisonment.
Section 124-A says whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the federal/provincial government shall be punished with life imprisonment. The disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity.
However, comments expressing disapprobation of government measures to obtain their alteration by lawful means, without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, and disapprobation of the administrative or other action without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection do not constitute an offence.
Section 120 reads: “Whoever, intending to facilitate or knowing it to be likely that he will facilitate the commission of an offence punishable with imprisonment, voluntarily conceals, by any act or illegal omission, the existence of a design to commit it, or makes any representation which he knows to be false respecting such design, if offence be committed; if offence be not committed shall, if the offence be committed, be punished with imprisonment of the description provided for the offence, for a term which may extend to one-fourth, and, if the offence not committed, to one-eighth, of the longest term of such imprisonment.” According to Section 120-B, whoever is a party to a criminal conspiracy to commit an offence punishable with death, imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment for two years or upwards shall be punished in the same manner as if he had abetted such an offence.
Section 10 of PECA says whoever commits or threatens to commit any of the offences under sections 6, 7, 8 or 9, where the commission or threat is with the intent to coerce, intimidate, create a sense of fear, panic or insecurity in the government or the public or a section of the public or community or sector create a sense of fear or insecurity in society or advance inter-faith, sectarian or ethnic hatred; or advance the objectives of organizations or individuals or groups proscribed under the law, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to fourteen years or with fine which may extend to fifty million rupees or with both.
The accused have also been charged under Sections 153, which deals with ‘wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause a riot’, 153-A regarding promoting enmity between different groups, and 505 which covers statements conducive to public mischief.
