LAHORE : Chief Justice Lahore High Court (LHC), Muhammad Qasim Khan Friday announced to remove controversial accountability court judge Justice Arshad Malik from his portfolio. The termination was approved by a seven-member committee of the senior judges of the Lahore High Court. The meeting of the committee was chaired by LHC CJ and attended by other senior judges. The other judges that attended the meeting included Justices Ameer Bhatti, Malik Shahzad Khan, Ayesha Malik, Shahid Waheed and Ali Baqar Najafi. Judge Malik’s career went down the hill after PML-N in 2019 released a video clip purportedly showing the accountability court judge allegedly admitting to a lack of evidence against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference. PML-N Vice-President Maryam Nawaz showed the alleged video and read out its transcript at a press conference lasting more than an hour. PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif, former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and other senior party leaders had accompanied Maryam Nawaz at the press conference at the time. The video purportedly shows the accountability court judge speaking to a PML-N worker named Nasir Butt and claiming that he was coerced to hand down the prison sentence against Nawaz Sharif despite there being no proof of corruption against the deposed premier. In December 2018, the accountability court judge had sentenced Nawaz Sharif to seven years in prison in the same corruption case.
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