Acting Chief Justice Islamabad High Court (IHC) Amir Farooq called on Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa in the latter's chamber in the Supreme Court on Tuesday to discuss the issue of video of Accountability Court Judge Arshad Malik, sources said. The meeting started at 01:30pm and continued for over half an hour. Accountability Court Judge Arshad Malik on Monday met with the acting CJ IHC Amir Farooq in the Islamabad High Court building.
PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz on July 06 along with other PML-N leaders in a press conference had shown the video wherein it was claimed that the judge of an accountability court confessed that he had been "pressurised and blackmailed" to convict her father in the Al-Azizia reference. A video containing the judge's alleged confession during his conversation with a 'sympathizer' of the PML-N, Nasir Butt, was screened during a hurriedly called presser at the party's provincial headquarters in Model Town Lahore.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, while chairing a meeting of the government spokespersons in the federal capital on Monday said that his government must avoid becoming a party to the video scandal. "Judiciary is free and independent, [and therefore] it should take notice of the matter," he said. Accountability Court judge Arshad Malik on Sunday last in a press release refuted Maryam Nawaz's claim that he is blackmailed into sending former prime minister Nawaz Sharif behind bars in Al-Azizia case.
He maintained that the video revealed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz vice-president in a press conference as evidence was fake and it was in fact the PML-N leadership that tried to bribe and pressure him to rule in favour of its supreme leader. The judge said his verdict against Nawaz was free of any bias and he had not acted under any sort of pressure. "The video shown in Maryam Safdar's press conference is contrary to facts and reality," he said.