Salman Iqbal, the CEO of ARY Network, and anchorperson Arshad Sharif have non-bailable arrest warrants issued for them after they failed to appear in a case involving launching a smear campaign through a discussion program, Power Play, against Jang/Geo Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman.
Before they failed to appear in court or provide the required bail money, the local court issued their arrest warrants that were subject to bail. A merit-based accountability court cleared Jang Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman of a NAB reference on January 31, 2022. The allusion was to the 1986 acquisition of land from a private owner.
The host of the ARY News talk show Power Play “deliberately misinterpreted” the accountability court’s January 31 ruling, claiming that Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman was freed from the charges because of changes made to the NAB Ordinance in 2021, resulting in an NRO rather than the case being decided on its merits. This was done as part of a defamation campaign. Honorable Accountability Court No. 1 in Lahore cleared Jang Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman of the NAB reference on January 31, 2022, based on the evidence presented.
The court did not appear to have relied on the NAB Amendments that were added to or modified in 2021 when it issued the ruling because of para. 24 of that judgment contains its definitive conclusion. The relevant sentence, which was reproduced in the order, stated that “further proceedings in the case would be nothing but a futile exercise that must be halted under section 265-K Cr.P.C. because there is no supportive material with the prosecution to prove the involvement of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and his co-accused in this case and there is no probability that the petitioner/accused and his co-accused will be convicted. When a charge appears to be without merit and continuing proceedings would amount to nothing more than an abuse of the legal system, the court may exercise its authority under Section 265-K of the Criminal Procedure Code.
It is important to note that ARY London had previously apologized for slandering Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman. Editor-in-Chief Jang/Geo filed a private suit in the court of Additional District and Sessions Court Judge-XI against ARY CEO Salman Iqbal and anchor Arshad Sharif (South). When the complaint was being heard, the court noted that the complainants had presented enough evidence against the defendants to establish a case against them under Sections 500, 501, and 502 read along with Section 499 of the PPC.
The defendants were issued Rs. 100,000 bailable warrants by the court to appear in court for the trial, however, they neither showed up nor paid their bail. Now that arrest warrants have been issued against the defendants by Additional District and Sessions Court Judge-XI (South), the Artillery Maidan SHO has been ordered to make the arrests and present the defendants in court. A new date for the hearing is October 10.
