Meesha Shafi’s plea accepted for transfer of Ali Zafar defamation suit

LAHORE (92 News) – A local court on Wednesday accepted a plea by singer Meesha Shafi showing distrust in the judge hearing a defamation suit filed by actor Ali Zafar, allowing the transfer of the case to another court. Resuming the hearing on the case here today, judge Muhammad Khalid Nawaz approved Meesha's request, asking her lawyer to specify a judge that they trusted. The judge issued orders to immediately transfer the case to another court. It is worth mentioning here that Meesha Shafi had accused her fellow singer and actor Ali Zafar of sexual harassment last year, leading to a key debate on the topic of sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement. On the other hand, the court cross-examined the one of the witnesses and summoned more witnesses on the next hearing. During the hearing, singer Ali Zafar’s counsel said that Meesha Shafi had levelled baseless allegations of harassment against him. He said that Ali Zafar’s reputation has been damaged by the false allegations of Meesha Shafi. District and Sessions judge Muhammad Khalid Nawaz had reserved the verdict on Meesha’s application, which stated that the additional district and sessions judge was showing partiality to Ali Zafar and that she had lost trust in him. The application moved through her counsel, Meesha had alleged that the additional district and sessions judge assisted witnesses in recording their statements in the defamation case, and that he had also fined her counsel without any reason. “The defendant does not have any confidence that the learned judge will be able to impartially and fairly proceeding in the case and hence desires to transfer her above-mentioned case to any other court of competent jurisdiction,” read the petition.