Money trail of LHC chief justice: IHC reserves verdict on petition’s maintainability

Details of Justice Mansoor’s time as lawyer, director of private firms sought

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on the maintainability of a petition which seeks the ‘money trail’ of Lahore High Court’s Chief Justice Mansoor Ali Shah from 2004 for taking a loan and then having it written off.

The alleged Rs350 million loan dates back to when Justice Shah was serving as the managing director of the Mansoor Textile Mills and Aaj Textiles.

Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, while hearing the petition on Thursday, reserved his verdict.



A lawyer, Anwar Dar, through his counsel Col (Retd) Inamul Rahiem, had approached the IHC and named the Security and Exchange Commission chairman, United Bank Ltd president, journalist Umer Cheema and the Punjab Bar Council secretary as respondents in the petition.

The counsel contended that a superior court’s judge, who got a loan written off by any means, does not deserve to hold an office of a constitutional court of the country.

While referring to a news report revealing details about the loan and the subsequent action, Rahiem said that he tried to establish the veracity of the report and had forwarded a written request to the LHC registrar under the Right to Access of Information Act, but got no response.

Subsequently, the petitioner forwarded a request to the Punjab Bar Council secretary for details on Justice Shah’s time spent practising law as a lawyer.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2017.