Pakistan court allows Meesha Shafi to proceed with defamation suit against singer Ali Zafar

The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday ordered a sessions court to initiate proceedings on a defamation suit filed by Pakistani singer Meesha Shafi against singer-actor Ali Zafar.

Justice Asim Hafeez passed the orders while allowing a petition filed by Shafi against a stay order on his defamation suit in the sessions court.

After this decision, the trial court would hear both defamation suits simultaneously.

The petitioner’s counsel argued before the court that a sessions court was holding proceedings on a defamation suit filed by Zafar against his client but it had stopped proceedings on the Rs2 billion defamation suit filed by his client against Zafar.

According to a Dawn report, advocate Saqib Jillani argued before the high court that instead of filing a reply to the suit of the petitioner, the respondent (Zafar) requested the sessions court to stay the subsequent suit.

He said the respondent had argued that the subsequent suit by the petitioner related to the same matter raised in the former suit, the report added.

The counsel argued that the issues in the former suit were not directly and substantially the same as the subsequent suit.

In 2019,  Shafi also filed a Rs2 billion suit for damages in the sessions court against Zafar for levelling false allegations against her in the media. However, the court stopped proceedings on Shafi's suit after Zafar, through an application, requested the court to stay proceedings on the suit until decision of his former suit.