JournalismPakistan.com
January 28, 2018

LAHORE - The Supreme Court on Sunday constituted a new joint investigation team led by Bashir Memon, the director general of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to probe claims of NewsOne TV analyst Dr. Shahid Masood.

Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar ordered that the new JIT be formed as he presided over a suo motu hearing into the Zainab case at the Lahore registry.

The court told Masood he would have to face the consequences if his claims turned out to be false while a certificate of honesty would be awarded to him if they proved true.  

The chief justice ordered Masood to appear before the JIT and present evidence to back his claims.

The analyst had claimed in his show that the alleged killer of little Zainab, had almost 40 bank accounts in Pakistan. But this was dismissed by the State Bank as wrong.

"These days, the law is discussed more on TV than in courts," the chief justice remarked. "You need to provide evidence. The accounts you mentioned do not exist. You have failed to prove your allegations so far."

Several senior journalists also appeared before the three-member bench, among them Arif Nizami, Mujeebur Rehman Shami, I.A. Rahman, and Kamran Khan. They suggested punishments for fake news after being asked by the judges to do so.