LAHORE – A fresh two-member bench was constituted by the Lahore High Court on Wednesday to conduct hearings on bail petition moved by Leader of the Opposition in Punjab Assembly, Hamza Shehbaz.
The bench would hear the petitions filed by the lawmaker in cases related to assets beyond means and money laundering.
The two-member bench comprises Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi and Justice Shahid Waheed Khan; the bench would hear the petitions of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader on June 3.
A day earlier, a two-judge Lahore High Court bench comprising Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem recused itself from hearing the bail plea of the legislator after he expressed reservations on it in the pretext of NAB Chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal’s interaction with columnist Javed Chaudhry.
During the last hearing, Hamza Shehbaz said he had grave reservations regarding the NAB as its chairman gave a controversial interview to the media. He cited the bureau’s chairman as saying that the bench of the high court hearing NAB-related cases had been changed and managed.
“I am not scared of being arrested,” argued Hamza Shehbaz and requested the bench to refer the matter to any other bench to protect integrity of the court following which the matter was referred to the chief justice.
Hamza has been securing bail from the Lahore High Court repeatedly. The politician faces risk of arrest at the hands of NAB if his bail plea is denied.
