Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Syed Kausar Abbas Zaidi, judge of an anti-terrorism court, has refused to take up the bail applications of Khalid Shamim and Mohsin Ali, the men linked to the murder of MQM leader Dr Imran Farooq.
The same court had rejected the bail application of Ali in the past.
The ATC judge has written to the chief justice of the Islamabad High Court that he could not hear this case due to personal reasons and asked him to transfer the case to some other court.
However, when Zaidi took up the bail applications on Thursday, counsel for the accused Mansoor Afridi appeared in the court. He said it was the jurisdiction of the prosecution to raise an objection to the challan. He asked the judge to identify the provision of the law under which he turned down the challan. The judge was annoyed and he said that he was answerable to the high court only. He directed the counsel for the accused to move the high court to have his grievances redressed.
Islamabad High Court Bar Association President Jahangiri condemned the incident and said that lawyers would not support anyone misbehaving the judges. He said that he wanted good relations between the bar and the bench.
Later, Afridi said that he sought a copy of the objections from the court to challenge these in the high court, but he was refused.