Bounced cheque case: Nine judges refuse to hear bail plea ‘for personal reasons’

Accused traffic warden filed bail petition three months ago.

LAHORE:

The bail application of a traffic warden accused in a dishonoured cheque case has not been decided some three months after it was filed, with nine judges refusing to hear it for ‘personal reasons’, The Express Tribune has learnt.

Gulab Singh, the traffic warden who is also a property dealer, allegedly wrote a cheque for Rs7.2 million, to an investor named Fayyaz, which was dishonoured by the bank.

According to court documents, Singh applied for pre-arrest bail on June 26 and the petition was marked to Additional District and Sessions Judge (ADSJ) Shaukat Kamal Dar. He returned it to the district and sessions judge, saying he did not wish to entertain the plea for personal reasons.

The case was then referred to Chaudhry Tariq Javed, who sent it back to the district and sessions judge on July 17.



The bail petition went on to Shaikh Sajjad (who sent it back on July 20) Javedul Hassan Chishti (September 5), Akmal Khan (September 12), Khizar Hayat Khan and three other judges, before finally being referred to ADSJ Anjum Raza Syed, who is scheduled to hear it on September 25.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, lawyers said that judges most often recused themselves for personal reasons when they felt they had been put under undue pressure by the lawyers in the case.

Advocate Chaudhry Waseem Gujjar, the counsel for the accused, said that senior bar representatives, including the Lahore Bar Association general secretaries and LBA Model Town Vice President Irfan Basra had tried to put the judges under pressure to find in favour of the complainant in the case.

That was why the judges were refusing to hear the bail plea, he said.

Basra denied this, saying no judge had been put under pressure.

He said that as the counsel for the complainant, he wanted the case heard quickly, as the evidence was on his side.

He said that the police had found the charges against Singh to be true.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2013.