Court appearance: Judge impersonator remanded for four days

Wife says man accused of posing as judge is mentally challenged.


Rana Yasif August 24, 2011

LAHORE:


A man arrested on Monday on charge of posing as a judge and asking an additional district and sessions judge to rule a case in his favour was remanded for four days on Wednesday.


Shehzad Mehmood was arrested on a complaint by Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Tahir Khan Niazi.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a court official said Mehmood had met the judge in his retiring room at around 7 am on Monday morning and introduced himself as an additional district and sessions judge. “He asked the judge to give a decision in his favour in a case he was hearing,” the court staffer said.

He said the man had first given him a paper and requested him to hand it over to the judge. He later followed official to the retiring room, he added.

He said the judge asked the man to leave but he returned at around 10am. “He now said he was an employee at the Lahore High Court,” the staffer said. The judge then contacted the Lahore High Court registrar Sohail Nasir about the claim, he added.

The man’s wife told The Express Tribune that he was mentally handicapped. She said he was also suffering from cancer and a heart disease. She said he had earlier got himself into trouble by claiming to be the Chief Justice of Pakistan. She added she had tried to keep him confined to their home after that incident. On Monday, however, he sneaked out.

She said she had appeared before Judge Muhammad Tahir Khan Niazi on Tuesday and informed him about her husband’s condition. “I showed him the medical reports and told him that my husband was suffering from a mental disability,” she said.

She said the judge told her to seek his release on bail and assured her that he would not pursue the case further.

An official, however, told The Tribune that the judge had assured an Islampura police officer that he would himself ask the magistrate hearing the case to remand the man to the police and not let him go unpunished.



Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2011.

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