IHC and LHC dismiss petitions against Geo News

ISLAMABAD/LAHORE: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) and Lahore High Court (LHC) dismissed petitions against Geo News and the channels senior anchors on Friday.

The IHC dismissed a petition which called for a treason case against Geo News and its senior anchors and the cancelation of the channels license. The IHC stated that the petition was non-maintainable.

The petition called for the federation, PEMRA, Geo management, Ansar Abbasi, Najam Sethi, Idrees Bakhtiar, Muneeb Farooq, Imtiaz Alam, Iftikhar Ahmad, Umar Cheema, Dr. Aamir Liaquat Hussain, Asma Shirazi and Amir Mir to become parties in the case.

The petition filed by a local journalist maintained that Geo management, Geo anchors, Amir Mir and private channel anchor Asma Shirazi disgraced the army during a transmission and should be tried for high-treason. The petition also called for the cancellation of Geo’s license.

Meanwhile, the LHC also dismissed a petition against the Jang/Geo group filed by the anchor of a private news channel.

During proceedings Justice Ejazul Hasan remarked that the petitioner had not read article 6 of the constitution which states that the petition should be submitted to the federal government. The constitution outlines procedures for a treason case, Justice Ejaz remarked. He further said that this court was not the appropriate forum for these charges.

Justice Ejaz told the petitioner that he was not an affected party as the allegations had been leveled against the ISI in the case, adding that the Defence Minister and federal government had already taken notice. Justice Ejaz further said that a judicial commission had been formed and its report should be waited for.

US receives 172,000 H1B visa petitions, lottery decides fate

The U.S., which received more than 172,000 applications for the H-1B visas, has conducted a computerised draw of lots to determine who all would be given the most sought after work visas that are highly popular among IT professionals from countries like India.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) conducted the computerised draw of lots to select the Congressionally mandated 65,000 applicants, who would receive the H-1B visas.

The USCIS, in a statement, said it also conducted draw of lots for Congressional mandated 20,000 H-1B petitions filed under the advanced degree exemption.

“USCIS received about 172,500 H-1B petitions during the filing period which began April 1, including petitions filed for the advanced degree exemption,” the federal agency said.

“On April 10, USCIS completed a computer-generated random selection process, or lottery, to select enough petitions to meet the 65,000 general-category cap and 20,000 cap under the advanced degree exemption,” it said.

For cap-subject petitions not randomly selected, USCIS will reject and return the petition with filing fees, unless it is found to be a duplicate filing.

The USCIS conducted the selection process for the advanced degree exemption first.

All advanced degree petitions not selected then became part of the random selection process for the 65,000 limit, the federal agency said.

However, the USCIS will continue to accept and process petitions that are otherwise exempt from the cap.

Petitions filed on behalf of current H-1B workers who have been counted previously against the cap will not be counted towards the congressionally mandated fiscal 2015 H-1B cap.

Special court to announce verdict on Musharraf’s petitions on Friday

ISLAMABAD: The special court trying former president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf in high treason case, Wednesday announced that it would announce verdict in three petitions of defence counsel regarding competence of the court to initiate proceedings, its formation and alleged bias of judges.

The three-member special court resumed hearing of the treason case.

During the course of proceedings, head of prosecution team, Akram Sheikh sought permisssion for offering Fateha for judges, lawyers and other people, who had become victim of Islamabad district courts' terrorist attack. Fateha was offered on the court's permission.

Defence counsel Anwar Mansoor Khan informed the court that after the terrorist attack, Pervaiz Musharraf and his lawyers were feeling insecure to appear in the court.

Then Ahmed Raza Kasuri, another consel for Musharraf, informed the court that he had received a letter from Taliban to desist himself, Anwar Mansoor Khan and Sharifuddin Pirzada from pursuing the case.

He said they would file two applications seeking sine die (indefinitely) adjournment of case on ground of deteriorated security situation.

Rana Ijaz Ahmed Khan despite being stopped by the court, alleged that the terrorists had planned to kill all three judges, the head of prosecution and two of the defence lawyers.

Akram Sheikh said the terrorist threat should not be glorified to subjugate and surrender the judges and lawyers commitment to perform their obligation of administration of justice.

He said that he would ensure that the terrorists were defeated by continuing the proceedings.

He was asked by the court to take instructions from his client with regard to security measures after the unfortunate episode of Monday.

Justice Faisal Arab observed that whether there was any threat or not, they were under obligation as judges of high court and bound by the oath to continue acting without fear or favour. They could not pack up files and adjourn the case indefinitely, he added.

He said they were willing to adjourn for today and would announce an order on the objections raised by the defence lawyers.