The GEO television’s nightly current affairs show ‘Aaj Kamran Khan key Saat’, or ‘Today with Kamran Khan’, was taken off the air on Thursday, a day before a Supreme Judicial Council resumed hearing the case against Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary.

‘Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) ordered the management of the GEO television network Thursday night to stop airing its flagship daily news programme with immediate effect,’ the channel said in a late-night statement.

A storm of protest followed the government’s suspension of Chaudhary last Friday, accusing him of ‘misconduct and misuse of authority’.

The vague allegations against Chaudhary, and his confinement under protective guard -- the government refuses to call it house arrest -- fuelled speculation that the independent-minded judge was being sacked because he might oppose any move by President Pervez Musharraf to retain his role as army chief, which under the constitution he should relinquish this year.

An international media watchdog condemned the banning of the GEO news programme, saying the rush to ‘roll back’ press freedom in Pakistan was accelerating.

‘Under increasing political pressure at home and abroad, the Musharraf government is resorting to heavy-handed tactics in dealing with critics and the independent media,’ said the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in a statement released in New York.

The media have blossomed, with an explosion of new television channels, since Musharraf took power in a bloodless military coup in 1999, but editors still come under pressure over reporting.

The ban on GEO’s show came two days after the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) cautioned broadcasters and press to refrain from indulging in a ‘media trial’ on the issue.

The council also ordered the Information Ministry and Pemra to advise media ‘not to arrange or produce talk shows and other similar programmes concerning issues pending before the Council’.

Over the past week Kamran Khan’s live show had run a series of programmes in which guests lambasted the government’s move against the judge.

‘We never had an agenda other than providing people the most accurate news and an objective analysis on this most important turning point of our history,’ said Khan, one of Pakistan’s best known investigative journalists and news anchor.