CM Punjab Shehbaz Sharif served ARY legal notices time and again, but they have not bothered to reply or follow-up cases against them. Resultantly, CM Punjab this time has sued ARY Network in UK, since they have a very strong law to deal with defamation cases
ISLAMABAD Jan 15(TNS): The ARY news channel claims to be one of the leading private news channels in Pakistan, and most of us suppose that it on almost every occasion comes with the right update having concrete facts. However, that’s not exactly the case. The ARY news channel unfortunately has allegedly been found presenting misleading news i.e. planted news.
According to the press release issued by Punjab Government one of the glaring examples of it is the fake news given by ARY News’ reporter Hamza Habib Farooq in August, 2017, that a Chinese regulatory authority had released a report stating that the Punjab chief minister Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif had received more than Rs 10 million in kickbacks from the Multan Metro Bus project through Yabaite.
The news report further specified that the Chinese regulator had found discrepancies in income reported by Yabaite, which was found to have business links to a firm called Capital Engineering and Construction Company in Pakistan. The additional investigation from the Chinese board revealed that the company in Pakistan belonged to Shehbaz Sharif.
What was so important in this whole story was the immediate response that came from the then acting Chinese ambassador Zhao Lijian, who through his tweet rejected allegations of corruption levelled against CM Shehbaz Sharif, saying that reports of him receiving kickbacks from the Multan Metro Bus project through a ‘fake’ Chinese firm are false. Ambassador Zhao clearly mentioned that the Chinese company Yabaite was not operating in Pakistan, and had presented fake letters to cheat the government.
The CM Punjab Mian Shehbaz Sharif strongly rejected the allegations levelled against him, and made absolutely clear that if anyone can prove a penny of corruption against me, they can hold me accountable.
Despite these baseless claims, the Punjab government ensured their cooperation to the investigation conducted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) regarding the affairs of Yabaite. Also, the Punjab government held an inquiry into the accusations, and learnt that Yabaite had never worked for the Multan Metro project nor any project contractors had acquired its services at any stage.
The verdict from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) over this debated issue came in December, 2017, and there was no surprise that CSRC blacklisted the Chinese company Jiangsu Yabaite Co Ltd over forgery and fraud charges, and hence was fined 900,000 yuan. Yabaite, through a letter, also confessed their crime and accepted the sentence given by the Chinese government. They admitted that the money sent to China by it had no connection with the Multan Metro Bus, and this letter is available at company’s website.
The most disappointing aspect of this whole story is that after it was proven ARY had reported a baseless news, no official apology has been made from them, and this is considered a huge violation of the Journalistic code of ethics.
Well this is not the first time ARY Network has been involved in controversies like these. Recently, in United Kingdom (UK), their media regulator Ofcom has revoked six licences of ARY Network in the UK, three weeks after the channel went into liquidation and its chief operating officer applied for bankruptcy after losing £3million libel case to Geo and Jang Group’s Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman at the London High Court.
The ARY Network instead of learning from their shortcomings again made an even worse mistake as ARY news returned to the UK market, but under the service name New Vision TV. The channel dropped the name ARY News in this region to ARY World, and launched on Sky EPG 804 – the former home of ARY QTV.
Adding to their list of fake news reporting, the ARY news in December last year claimed that CM Punjab Mian Shehbaz Sharif has been summoned in Saudi Arabia over connection with Saudi princes’ corruption cases and money laundering investigation. However, the reality was 180 degrees opposite as CM Punjab was invited their as state guest by the Saudi government to discuss important matters related with Pak-Saudia cooperation on various subjects.
To counter these untrue charges, the CM Punjab has served ARY legal notices time and again, but they have not bothered to reply or follow-up these cases. As a result, the CM Punjab this time has sued the ARY Network in UK, since they have a very strong judicial procedure over defamation claims.
It has been also very disappointing that in Pakistan, the laws made over defamation claims are extremely poor and non-functional. This is a major reason that anyone within Pakistan stands up, and bash whomever he wants without providing any sufficient evidence. The ARY news has been consistently doing like this, and they are least concerned whether it is hurting someone’s image or resulting in serious repercussions.
