by Nasir Iqbal in Dawn, November 10th, 2020
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to Editor-in-Chief of Jang Group of Newspapers Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, who has been in captivity for around eight months, in a reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) about a 34-year-old matter of land purchase.
Headed by Justice Mushir Alam and comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Qazi Amin Ahmed, the SC bench had taken up a post-arrest bail plea of the media tycoon against the rejection of the same plea by the Lahore High Court on July 8.
The All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS), while hailing the development, said “finally justice has prevailed”.
Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari termed it “victory of free media”.
The Jang Group’s editor-in-chief was arrested on March 12 by NAB at its Lahore office where he had been called to submit answers to the questionnaire attached with a call-up notice. ….
Earlier, during the hearing, Advocate Amjad Pervez informed the bench that Mr Rahman had neither caused any loss to the government nor had the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) ever lodged any complaint against him.
The counsel explained that his client was facing the allegations of acquiring an additional four-kanal-and-12-marla land in Lahore in 1986 without paying its market value. The plot was allotted in H-block of Lahore’s Jauhar Town Phase-II on a general power of attorney on behalf of Hidayat Ali and Hikmat Ali on the directives of then Punjab chief minister Nawaz Sharif in violation of the relevant laws/rules. He explained that his client had made additional payment in 1987 in accordance with the relevant laws of that time.
When Justice Afridi inquired from the prosecutor whether the documents presented by the accused were true or false, the NAB prosecutor admitted that the documents were true. The prosecutor also could not offer any plausible justification when asked if references were also filed against other accused.
In his petition, Mr Rahman pleaded that the reopening of a 34-year-old matter relating to exemption of plots with respect to which neither the LDA nor any other authority or owner of the land had raised any grievance inevitably involved consideration extraneous to law……
www.dawn.com/news/1589596/sc-grants-bail-to-jang-group-chief-in-nab-reference
