LAHORE: A two-judge bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday first recused itself from an intra-court appeal of PTI President Parvez Elahi in a corruption case, but later changed its mind and chose to decide the appeal’s maintainability.

The appeal was filed against a single bench’s decision that had set aside a judicial magistrate’s order of discharging Mr Elahi.

The bench comprising Justice Sheh­ram Sarwar Chaudhry and Justice Ali Zia Bajwa had taken up the matter and Aftab Ahmad Bajwa appeared on behalf of the appellant.

However, Justice Chaudhry told the counsel that the bench would not hear the appeal for “personal reasons” and the chief justice would be requested to fix the matter before any other bench.

Later, Mr Bajwa said the bench resumed the hearing and decided to hear arguments on the point of maintainability of the appeal. The lawyer said his associate had attended the subsequent hearing.

The bench would resume the hearing on Tuesday (today).

On Oct 3, a single bench set aside the magistrate’s decision of discharging Mr Elahi with a direction to review the ruling.

The prosecutor general had challenged Mr Elahi’s exoneration in the case registered by the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) regarding cor-ruption in funds for development projects to be executed in Gujranwala division.

The prosecution argued that the magistrate had no power to discharge the respondent.

It said the ACE had the authority to keep a suspect in its custody for 14 days to hold investigation and make recovery.

On the other hand, Mr Elahi’s counsel stated that the magistrate was empowered to discharge any suspect in the absence of evidence.

He said the magistrate had to give reasons for granting or denying remand of a suspect.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2023