KARACHI: 2nd Additional District & Session judge Central framed charge against Aqeel Karim Dhedhi, Chairman AKD Group, Mubashir Luqman, news anchor on a complaint filed by JS Bank Limited in a case of alleging accused persons entered into a criminal conspiracy to defame JS Bank & former chairman of the complainant Bank.
On 7 November 2020, during the hearing, both accused persons appeared before the court along with their counsel, court framed charge and they were asked for guilty, however, they pleaded not guilty and claimed trial therefore, court fixed Dec 12, 2020 for evidence and adjourned the hearing.
It needs to be mentioned here that 3rd Accused Rana Azeem has been declaredas proclaimed offender and the court directed its office to his case ona dornment file till his arrest and issue of his warrant.
Earlier, counsel for the complainant stated that accused persons entered into a criminal conspiracy to defame ex-chairman of the complainant Bank and the complainant itself along with a host of other companies and organizations associated (whether directly or indirectly) with him and the complainant bank, as per of this conspiracy MubashirLuqman hosted a series of programmers on his show ‘Khara Sach’ with MubashirLuqman aired on the Samaa Television News Channel directly targetingEx-chairman of JS Bank and companies and organizations associated with him dated March 13, 26, 2018 and April 02, 2018.
Counsel argued that Pemra (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) has in its proceedings dated April 25, 2019 also imposed a fine of Rs300,000 on Samaa TV (Jaag Broadcasting System (Pvt) Ltd).
Citing above mentioned accused persons, counsel pleaded that aforesaid defamatory remarks were made and broadcasted throughout the world by the accused persons with common intent toharm the reputation of the JS Bank and JS Group in furtherance of their aforementioned criminal conspiracy against the complainant, the accused no 1and 2 were the originators of the said defamatory remarks as such the actions of the accused persons amount to offences defined under section 499 P.P.C and section 120-A P.P.C read with section 34 P.P.C triable by a sessions court.
