Daily Times

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday reserved its judgment on maintainability of a petition praying the court to restrain private television channels from airing of talk shows on the Panama Papers case.

Amjad Farooq Bismil, a local resident, had moved the petition. Counsel for petitioner A K Dogar argued, “The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) rules bar all television channels to broadcast programmes and hold debates on the matters pending before courts.

He stated that that it was a universally accepted principle that when a case was pending in a court – whether subordinate or superior – the matter was said to be sub-judice. He submitted that in Pakistan news anchors daily acted like judges and participants of their programmes argued like counsels for parties and even the remarks made by judges were subjected to criticism during the television programmes.

He requested the court to issues directives to the PEMRA to enforce its law and stop all television channels from holding programmes on sub-judice matters. The court after preliminary hearing of the petition reserved the decision on maintainability of the petition.

Published in Daily Times, July 25^th 2017.