Acting on a stay order from the Lahore High Court (LHC), an accountability court on Saturday adjourned until September 29 a hearing into the revival of corruption references filed against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leaders Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif.
The Rawalpindi Accountability Court was hearing the case for reopening three references – Hudabiya Paper Mills, Ittefaq Foundaries and Raiwind assets reference – in which Nawaz, his brother Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and other family members are allegedly involved. During Saturday’s hearing, the counsel for the Sharif brothers appealed to the court that the high court had ordered an injunction on further proceedings. The court also accepted an application by Khawaja Harris Ahmed advocate to represent the petitioners in place of Akram Sheikh advocate.
Last Thursday, Khawaja Harris had told the LHC Rawalpindi bench that a division bench of the same court on October 18, 2011 passed an interim order in which it restrained the accountability court from proceeding in the references until further orders. Haris said due to some clerical mistake, the respondent no 3 (accountability court) was inadvertently typed as respondent no 1 (federal government) and the mistake could be corrected under Section 152 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC).
According to him, the mistake had come to the petitioners’ notice during the course of arguments, before the Rawalpindi Accountability Court, on an application by the National Accountability Bureau for the cases’ revival. The NAB, after deciding to proceed with the references as the restraining order only extended to the federal government and there was no legal bar on the bureau, issued notices to the Sharifs on July 28 to respond to the application for reopening the corruption references against them. Last year, the LHC Rawalpindi bench temporarily restrained NAB from proceeding in the case.
The court ordered NAB authorities to submit record of the cases on the next date of hearing and adjourned the matter until July 28.
The references had also been adjourned in September 2007 for an indefinite period because the Sharifs were in exile.