LAHORE: Actor-cum-singer Ali Zafar has asked a sessions court to reject a plea of fellow singer Meesha Shafi for her cross examination through a video link from Canada in a defamation suit he has been pursuing against her for levelling “false” allegations of sexual harassment.

Shafi had requested the court for her video-link cross examination as she and her husband were residing in Canada and it was very difficult and impractical for them to travel to Pakistan for the legal process.

In response to her plea, as directed by the court, Zafar rejects the assertions made by her to seek permission for cross-examination through video link.

He says the plea of ‘unnecessary cost’ taken by the defendant was false and baseless.

Zafar states that he has already consented to bear all the travel expenses of the defendant and had no objection if the court passes an order to deposit the same to its satisfaction.

He also questions the Covid-19 ground taken by Shafi while seeking video-link arrangement, saying the pandemic situation is now under control throughout the world and at present there are no travel restrictions.

The plaintiff contends that the defendant filed a false and frivolous application only to abuse the process of law, which amounts to disobeying the order passed by the Supreme Court whereby directions have been given to both parties to refrain from filing unnecessary applications to prolong the proceedings of the trial.

Urging the court to dismiss the plea of Meesha Shafi, Ali Zafar pleads that the application for video link is not legally justified.

The court sought arguments from both sides in the matter on Nov 5.

Earlier, the counsel for Ali Zafar also conducted partial cross examination of senior actor Saba Hameed, the mother of Shafi.

Responding to questions of the plaintiff’s counsel, Ms Hameed said it was correct that she was not an eyewitness to the alleged incidents of sexual harassment quoted by her daughter.

However, the actor said she believed her daughter as “she never told a lie”.

The cross examination will be resumed on the next hearing.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2021