LAHORE – Punjab Law Ministry has appointed seven session judges to work in accountability courts in Lahore and Rawalpindi.One of these judges will take charge as the judge of accountability court no 4 in Lahore whose presiding officer has already been retired, while others will replace judges who have been slacked at the orders of Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice (CJ) because of inefficiency.
The performance of accountability judges working in Lahore and Rawalpindi has been observed by the superior courts since restoration of judiciary. Sources said that after keen observation of LHC CJ regarding performance of accountability judges the Punjab Law Ministry decided to replace the low performing judges gradually. In this regard, initially two judges from Rawalpindi accountability court are being sacked immediately.
The summary of their removal has been presented to the authorities concerned. The new session judges include Muhammad Islam (Bahawalpur), Mian Muhammad Shafi (Okara), Ch. Mahmood Ahmad Shakir (Faisalabad), Muhammad Boota (Multan), Altaf Hussain (Sargodha), Syed Hamid Hussain Shah (Sargodha) and Jahandad Khan Banth (Multan).
Drug smugglers sentenced to death: An anti-narcotics court on Wednesday sentenced Rana Saqib and Muhammad Iqbal to death on charges of possessing huge amounts of heroin and hashish. The accused were arrested last year when they were attempting to slip narcotics into Lahore.
The Anti Narcotics Force seized 1,000 kilograms of hashish from Rana Saqib and 30 kilograms of heroin from Muhammad Iqbal.