Supreme Court on Monday stayed the execution of Imdad Ali, a schizophrenic man convicted in 2002 for murdering a cleric.

The hanging was postponed on the basis of Ali's mental illness.

The court issued notices to Advocate General Punjab, Prosecutor General Punjab and Attorney General, seeking their comments on the issue.

The notices were issued in connection with a review petition submitted by Imdad Ali's wife. The apex court had already rejected a plea as his lawyers said Ali is unfit to be executed since he is unable to understand his crime and punishment.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali heard the case.

Counsel for Ali's wife informed the court that the death warrant for Ali has been issued, however he has not yet been executed.

The hearing of the case will resume in the second week of November.

Government doctors in 2012 certified Imdad Ali, 50, as being a paranoid schizophrenic, after he was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2001 murder of a cleric.

'Characterised insane'

While dismissing her appeal against the Aug 23 order of the Lahore High Court’s Multan Bench upholding the sentence awarded by the trial court, the Supreme Court had ruled that mental sickness like schizophrenia did not subjugate the death sentence because such a psychiatric disorder was not a permanent disease.

“Schizophrenia is not a permanent mental disorder, rather imbalance, increasing or decreasing depending upon the level of stress,” the court had held, adding that in recent years, the prognosis of such ailments had been improved with drugs and a vigorous psychological and social management and rehabilitation.

It was, therefore, a recoverable disease, which in all the cases did not fall within the definition of “mental disorder” as defined in the Mental Health Ordinance 2001, the verdict stated.

In her review petition, Safia Bano pleaded that the Supreme Court reconsider its Sept 27 judgement, especially when it was evident from across the medical jurisprudence that paranoid schizophrenia was classified as a chronic and permanent mental disorder, affecting cognitive functions.

The medical records, the petition said, reflected that Ali had consistently displayed symptoms of schizophrenia and was not showing signs of improvement and had active psychotic symptoms.

According to Ali’s medical report of Nov 20, 2012, paranoid schizophrenia significantly impairs the patient’s rational thinking and decision-making capabilities.

In the prison’s medical record and a reply filed by the superintendent of the Vehari district jail to the high court, Ali had consistently been recorded as suffering from persecutory or paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations, the petition said, adding that his jail record demonstrated that his illness was severe and permanent and that no lucid periods had been recorded.

Dr Tahir Feroze, a consultant psychiatrist of Nishtar Hospital, Multan, who had been treating Ali for several years in the jail had also conceded in his Sept 18 affidavit before the court that Ali’s mental illness was of a chronic nature, meaning that it was incurable and that he was currently of unsound mind and had been characterised insane, the petition argued.