Hearing a plea of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the release of Sharif brothers’ assets by the Lahore High Court, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought copies of their accords with then chief executive of the country Gen Pervez Musharraf for leaving the country and the record of accountability references pending against them.
NAB’s Prosecutor General KK Agha told a two-member bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain that the Sharif brothers had left the country through a deal and had voluntarily surrendered their properties to NAB.
He said after their return, they filed an appeal before the Lahore High Court, contending that the accountability cases against them had disposed of, thus their properties be released and consequently the court ordered release of their properties.
Agha requested the court to allow NAB to file case against them with an accountability court. The court inquired why NAB had not produced a copy of the deal before either the high court or the Supreme Court, to which Agha said NAB wanted to hold the property of Sharif brothers until reaching the bottom of the matter.
The chief justice observed that NAB had no authority to hold the property until a reference could be filed against the Sharif brothers. To a court query on why a reference was not filed against the Sharifs earlier, Agha said it was due to the unavailability of the NAB chairman. The chief justice asked Agha to produce the record of references filed against the Sharifs, however, he Agha could not do that, telling the court that Nawaz was awarded sentence in the plane conspiracy case, but he left the country under a deal. He said his property was attached with the deal agreement.
To a court query, Agha said three references, including the reference on Hudabia Paper Mills, were pending against the Sharif family and their associates with the accountability court. The chief justice again asked him to produce record of the deal so that the court may decide under which law it could hear the case. Agha, however, said no such record was available with NAB, but might be available with the federation.
The court then directed him to get copies of the deal from the federation and produce it in cout it. The proceedings were adjourned until the third week of January.