LAHORE             -       While hailing the Lahore High Court’s decision to dismiss judge Arshad Malik, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said that the decision proved that his brother, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was innocent.

Taking to Twitter, the former Punjab chief minister thanked God for the decision, adding that it had been proven that a three-time elected prime minister was subjected to an unjust verdict.

The PML-N president’s tweet came a few minutes after news broke that the LHC’s administration committee had terminated judge Arshad Malik from service.

Shehbaz said that after this decision, Nawaz’s conviction should also be repealed.

The Lahore High Court’s administration committee’s decision is actually an evidence on Mohammad Nawaz Sharif’s innocence, he said.

“I would appeal to party workers and the masses to offer gratitude prayers,” he wrote.

PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz, in a series of tweets, said the Nawaz Sharif was the elected prime minister of the country who saw his family breaking apart and suffered huge losses to uphold the rule of law and constitution. She said that the court’s decision was the victory of Nawaz Sharif’s perseverance. She said that his patience and commitment overcame the oppression.

In another tweet, she said that justice never remained incomplete. She said that complete justice would take place when the malafide verdict against Nawaz Sharif would be reverted.

PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz had alleged last year that the judge had contacted Nasir Butt, a PML-N worker and told him that he was feeling guilty and having nightmares ever since he announced the verdict that led to Nawaz’s imprisonment.

The judge claimed to have been “blackmailed” into handing down the sentence against Nawaz Sharif after some people threatened that they would release his private video, Maryam had alleged.

Judge Arshad Malik, after becoming embroiled in the so-called judge video scandal, had penned a letter to the IHC in July last year wherein he had refuted Maryam’s claims and revealed other information related to the controversy.

In an affidavit submitted to the court, Malik had denied the contents of the video — which purportedly showed him admitting to a lack of evidence against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif — and termed it edited, fabricated, and aimed to defame him.

Maryam had claimed that the judge was under immense pressure to send the former prime minister to jail, and that he had contemplated committing suicide several times since then. She said the judge did not write the verdict but “was made to write” the prison sentence for Nawaz Sharif.

Responding to the allegations, the accountability court judge had called the video presented by the PML-N as fake and fallacious. He had demanded legal action against those involved in producing the videotape.