LONDON: The legal battle between two gigantic media groups of Pakistan has been decided in a British court.
The court had ordered private television channel ARY News to pay 185,000 pounds to Geo TV Chairman Mir Shakeelur Rehman in compensation. The case was filed by Mir Shakeelur Rehman in London’s High Court of Justice against ARY News for defaming and threatening him.
The court, after reviewing the legal aspects of the case, gave its verdict and ordered the chairman of ARY News to pay a fine for defaming Mir Shakeel. The court, however, rejected the charges of heartening the applicant.
The court mentioned in its decision that even after giving time to ARY News, it neither withdrew the charges levelled against the Geo News chairman nor sought pardon. The case was heard by Justice Sir David Eddy of the Queen’s Bench of High Court of Justice from November 1 to November 7. On December 2, the court released its comprehensive verdict.
Mir Shakeelur Rehman filed the case on the basis of ARY’s programme ‘Khara Sach’, in which anchorperson Mubasher Luqman had levelled serious allegation against him, damaging the credibility of the media group’s chairman. He said in his petition that a series of 24 episodes of the said programme was telecast in the UK and other countries.
He said that hundreds of thousands of people watched this programme, and in front of those viewers, he was insulted, which was a cognisable crime.
In his application, Mir Shakeel said he was affronted by the placing of his photo on an empty chair, and in this way an impression was created that he was unable to face the allegation levelled against him.
The counsel for the ARY News told the court in response to the application that before the airing of programme ‘Khara Sach’ the repute of Mir Shakeelur Rehman was already “awful”. He said that the programme did not damage his reputation as much as he had mentioned in his application.
He told the court that after the life attempt on anchorperson Hamid Mir, the management of Geo TV had levelled unfounded allegations against the head of a national security agency, Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam. As a result, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) had fined the news channel, he said.
He said that in a programme ‘Utho Jago’, Geo TV had maligned religious personalities. Moreover, the owner of Geo TV, Mir Shakeel, had aired a programme showing the home of Ajmal Kasab, the main accused in Mumbai attacks, due to which the people in Pakistan started hating the TV channel.
The lawyer also informed the court that Mir Shakeel was also found involved in propagating in favour of the US, India and Israel after taking a huge amount from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Mossad and Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). He alleged that the group chairman’s relations with Indian secret agency RAW were an open secret.
Justice Eddy in his decision wrote that the ARY News has levelled allegations against Mir Shakeelur Rehman in abundance, due to which the court found it difficult to reach a conclusion. However, it is a prerogative of a judge to make a decision on allegations levelled against anybody.
The court, after hearing the arguments from both sides, declared that allegation were levelled against Mir Shakeelur Rehman to malign him, which was a case of character assassination. The court also declared that had the ARY News submitted an excuse and withdrawn its charges, then the case would have been different, but it did not do so.
