Islamabad (January 15, 2018): The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed on Monday a review petition against the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Hudaibia case.
The petition requested the court to review paragraphs 6, 23, 27 and 32 of the verdict and issue notices to the members named in the case. It further stated that SC’s two judges disqualified Nawaz Sharif on April 20, 2017 in Panama Leaks case while three judges supported to form Joint Investigation Team (JIT) who presented report on July 10 in the court.
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On July 20, NAB filed a plea demanding to reopen Hudaibiya Papers case which was dismissed by the apex court after three days.
The bureau has asked the judicial authorities to approve its appeal against Lahore High Court (LHC) decision to shut Hudaibiya Paper Mills case and annul the claims of its expiration.
The apex court, on December 15, 2017, had dismissed NAB’s appeal to reopen the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against the Sharif family.
The NAB, in its review petition, stated that the Supreme Court ruled on its appeal in three days, adding that a reinvestigation of the case cannot be stopped.
The petition also stated that the Supreme Court overlooked several materials provided by NAB.
In the review petition, spread over 25-30 pages, NAB has stated that it had decided, in a board meeting after April, 2017, to reopen the case on its own.
The Rs1.2 billion Hudaibiya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family, was initiated by NAB in 2000 but quashed by the Lahore High Court (LHC) in 2014. The NAB had appealed the LHC decision in the Supreme Court.
The three-member Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Mushir Alam and comprising Justices Qazi Faez Isa and Mazhar Alam Miankhel, that dismissed the appeal last year issued a detailed verdict this year.
In its detailed judgment, released on January 5, the bench noted that “the learned Judges of the High Court were justified to quash the Reference and once it was quashed the question of reinvestigation did not arise.”
In the detailed judgment, the bench further noted that the respondents were “denied due process”. That “the legal process was abused, by keeping the Reference pending indefinitely and unreasonably.” Also observing that the “respondents were denied the right to vindicate themselves”.
The detailed judgment acknowledged “the manner in which Mr. Imranul Haq, the learned Special Prosecutor, conducted the case. Though the brief entrusted to him was difficult he remained stoic and tenaciously persevered.”
Hudaibiya case
The prosecution alleges the Sharif family in the 1990s used the company to launder 1.2 billion Pakistani rupees ($10 million) out of the country.
The case was lodged against Nawaz Sharif, his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Shahbaz’s son and Member of National Assembly Hamza Shahbaz and other members over Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar’s confessional statement on April 25, 2000 before magistrate in Lahore.
The reference was afterwards dismissed by LHC referee judge Justice Sardar Shamimon March 11, 2014 in response to a writ petition filed in 2011, stating that Dar was pressurized to record the statement.
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