The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday ordered the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to return property documents belonging to the members of the Sharif family which had been seized in 2001 under Pervez Musharraf’s regime for recovering the amount of fine imposed on the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif in two cases.
A division bench comprising Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Muhammad Khalid Mehmood Khan passed the order. The bench allowed seven identical petitions of the Sharif family against NAB for not releasing the documents of their factories. In the petition filed through Shahid Hamid, the Sharif family pleaded that the NAB was not releasing their properties seized in 2001 to recover the fine imposed by an accountability court and an anti-terrorism court in the cases of purchasing a Russian helicopter and plane hijacking.
The Sharifs argued that the conviction was set aside by the Supreme Court on October 30, 2000 but despite repeated applications NAB was not releasing the seized documents and had resorted to coercive measures against them. They requested the court to issue directions for their documents’ return. In Tuesday’s proceedings, the bench asked NAB’s representative to justify its holding of property documents despite the fact that the conviction was set aside by the SC.
However, upon not receiving a satisfactory argument, the bench ordered NAB to return the seized documents to the Sharif family.
good decision
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