LAHORE, Feb 16: A full bench of the Lahore High Court on Friday directed the Geo TV management to file a reply on Feb 26 to a contempt of court notice.

The court had last week served the contempt notice on the TV management, including its chairman Mir Shakilur Rahman, for telecasting a programme on Jan 12. The programme had shown a man, claiming to be an official of the LHC, taking bribe in a bail matter.

Headed by Justice Syed Zahid Husain and comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice M A Shahid Siddiqui, Justice Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, the court also allowed the respondents an access to the copy of the case around which the TV programme had been revolved.

The chairman of the TV channel, Mir Ibrahimur Rehman, Managing Director Nasir Baig Chughtai, programme producer Haider Jinnah, editor news of Electronic Media News Network Shafiq Awan and two others, Mohsin Irfan and Faisal Manzoor, appeared before the court through their counsel on Friday.

Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, who represented the channel chairman, submitted that the list of respondents to the case had mistakenly inserted name of Sohail Abbas as producer of the programme. He informed the court that the programme was produced by Ismail Jillani. The bench reviewed the respondents’ list and included Mr Jillani’s name as producer, issuing him notice for appearance on next hearing.

Later, Mr Ahsan submitted two applications on behalf of his clients, requesting their exemption from personal hearing. He argued that both of his clients had extensive engagements while working as heads of, what he said, Pakistan’s biggest group of newspapers.

However, the court issued notices to the state for the next date of hearing.

Later, the bench took up an identical petition filed by Iftikhar Husain Rajput against the same programme. The bench decided to proceed in both the petitions on next hearing. —Staff Reporter