'Not a Matter of Surrender or Conquest': SC Says It Cannot Hear NAB Cases, Transfers Them to FCC

Pakistan's Supreme Court has ruled that it no longer has jurisdiction to hear cases brought under the National Accountability Ordinance, transferring all pending National Accountability Bureau appeals and bail applications to the newly created Federal Constitutional Court instead.

The ruling itself

A three-judge bench led by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, alongside Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan, issued a 30-page judgment addressing two petitions, including one filed on behalf of under-trial prisoner Aamir Mahmood. The bench framed its own loss of jurisdiction not as an institutional defeat but as a straightforward application of new constitutional structure, writing that "it is not a matter of surrender or conquest, but it is regulated by the law."

The constitutional change behind the ruling

The judgment traces directly back to the 27th Constitutional Amendment, passed in November of last year, which introduced Article 175-F establishing the Federal Constitutional Court with appellate jurisdiction specifically over NAB matters. Section 32-A of the National Accountability Ordinance now provides what the court calls a statutory "second appeal" remedy before the FCC, and critically, that remedy applies with retrospective effect, meaning it reaches back to cover cases that were already in process before the new court existed, not just future filings.

A pointed rebuke of the Supreme Court's own past conduct

Beyond simply declining jurisdiction, the bench used the judgment to criticize what it characterized as past "unbridled judicial overreach" in NAB-related matters, language suggesting the court views this jurisdictional handoff as an opportunity for a degree of institutional self-correction, not merely a procedural formality required by the new constitutional amendment. That kind of explicit self-criticism from a sitting Supreme Court bench about its predecessors' handling of a major case category is relatively unusual, and signals the court wants the shift to the FCC read as a genuine structural improvement rather than a reluctant concession.

Who this affects

The ruling's practical reach extends to every pending NAB bail application and criminal appeal currently before the Supreme Court, all of which now redirect to the Federal Constitutional Court instead. Among the specifically named cases likely affected are those involving former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, tied to the Al-Qadir Trust case, one of the highest-profile prosecutions currently moving through Pakistan's accountability system. Shifting a case of that political significance to an entirely new judicial body adds real uncertainty to its timeline and, potentially, its eventual outcome.

Why this matters beyond the individual cases

The creation of the Federal Constitutional Court itself has been one of the more consequential structural changes in Pakistan's judiciary in recent memory, and this ruling represents one of the clearest early tests of how much authority is actually shifting away from the Supreme Court as a result. A Supreme Court voluntarily and explicitly relinquishing jurisdiction over an entire category of high-profile accountability cases, rather than contesting or narrowly interpreting the new court's authority, suggests the judiciary is treating the FCC's jurisdiction as settled rather than open to further institutional pushback.

With the Al-Qadir Trust case and other major NAB matters now redirected to a court still establishing its own operating precedents, how quickly and consistently the FCC handles this sudden influx of high-profile transferred cases will be an early indicator of whether the new judicial structure functions as intended.