Lahore    -   A full three-judge Lahore High Court (LHC) full bench will take up PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz’s petition seeking return of her passport on Wednesday (today).

The bench, headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti also includes Justices Ali Baqar Najafi and Tariq Saleem Sheikh, was constituted on Monday to hear Maryam Nawaz’s petition.

It is pertinent to note that the PML-N leader’s efforts to get back her passport have seen a protracted legal battle as all benches that were assigned the petition till date had to be dissolved after a number of judges recused themselves from the case owing to various reasons.

Now a fresh full bench will take up the case three days after a two-member bench sent the petition to the chief justice as one of its members recused himself from the matter. The petition had landed on a bench comprising Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Muhammad Anwarul Haq Pannun.

Subsequently, the bench referred the petition to the chief justice with a request to place it before any other appropriate bench for the hearing.

Earlier this year, three judges had refused to hear Maryam’s petition seeking her passport to travel to Saudi Arabia and perform Umrah

The bench, headed by Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi, had observed that the matter should be heard by the relevant bench which had already heard it and granted her post-arrest bail.

Later, another division bench headed by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi heard the plea. As the proceedings commenced, Justice Najafi announced that his colleague Justice Farooq Haider was not willing to hear the case owing to reasons best known to the judge.

The case file was then sent to Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti with a request to place this matter before any bench.

Following this, another bench led by Justice Najafi heard the matter, but Justice Asjad Javed Ghural recused himself to hear the case. It was then again sent to the LHC chief justice to be placed before another bench.

Finally, the petition was withdrawn by the petitioner.