ISLAMABAD: Justice Umar Ata Bandial of Supreme Court of Pakistan, on Wednesday recused himself from the Editor-in-Chief of the Jang/Geo Group, Mir Shakilur Rehman’s post-arrest bail application.

Justice Bandial, heading a three-member bench, said he could not hear this case due to personal reason.

He then referred the matter to Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed for constituting a new bench and fixed the case for hearing next week as Khawaja Haris, representing Mir Shakilur Rehman, requested to fix this case for early hearing.

Mir Shakilur Rehman on September 10th filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the verdict of the Lahore High Court (LHC) denying him bail in a land allotment case.

A division bench of the LHC on 08 July 2020 had dismissed the writ petition of Mir Shakilur Rehman.

The petitioner said, among other things, that the Division Bench had totally misread the contents of the DG LDA’s letter dated 26.09.1990, and, thereby, committed a jurisdictional error in assuming that the petitioner was required to pay market price for the excess land sold to him in 1986, when, as a matter of fact, letter dated 26.09.1990, unambiguously, establishes that prior to 26.09.1990, only reserve price was payable for excess area.—

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020