The Federal Shariat Court on Friday suspended the Lahore High Court's order on the Mukhtar Mai gang-rape case and decided that it would adjudicate the case itself. Warrants were issued for the 13 persons acquitted in the case. The court issued notice to Mukhtar Mai, the advocate general of Punjab and other respondents. It directed its office to procure the entire record of the case including six appeals which have recently been adjudicated by the Lahore High Court. "The appeals filed with the high court were not legitimate since the only competent appellate forum for this case was the Federal Shariat Court," said an order passed by a three-member bench of the Federal Shariat Court comprising Justice Saeedur Rehman Farrukh, Justice Zafar Pasha Chaudhry and Justice SA Rabbani.Mukhtar Mai was allegedly gang-raped in the presence of a crowd, in compliance with the decree of a jirga (tribal jury) in Meerwala village of Muzaffargarh on June 22, 2002. Fourteen men were accused and a judge, Zulfiqar Ali Malik, of the Anti-Terrorism Court in Dera Ghazi Khan sentenced six of them to death. These six challenged their conviction in the high court. The Multan bench of the Lahore High Court acquitted five convicts and changed the sentence for the sixth to life imprisonment, on March 3, 2005. The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) order stated that an appeal in a case involving Hudood implications should have been made to the FSC rather than a high court.