LAHORE, Feb 2: A full bench of the Lahore High Court issued contempt of court notice on Friday to the Geo TV channel for telecasting a programme in which some court officials were accused of being corrupt.

The programme, Gumnam, on Jan 12 showed the court officials taking bribe to settle a bail matter. The bench asked all respondents, including Mir Shakilur Rehman, Mir Ibrahimur Rehman, Nasir Baig Chughtai, Sohail Abbasi, and Haider Jinnah of Geo, Shafiq Awan of another TV channel, Mohsin Irfan of Sheikhupura and Faisal Manzoor of Samanabad, Lahore, to appear in person before the court on Feb 16

The bench is headed by Justice Syed Zahid Husain and includes Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice M. A. Shahid Siddiqui, Justice Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi and Justice Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah.

The court said that Punjab Additional Advocate General Muhammad Hanif Khatana submitted that the channel had manipulated facts in the programme in order to malign and tarnish the image of the court in public eye. According to him, the main focus of the programme was that an accused was granted bail by the court on medical grounds although no medical certificate issued by any hospital or doctor had been appended to his bail application nor any such material had been produced before the court at the time of hearing of the application.