Hudaibiya Paper Mills reference filed in 90’s against the Sharif family is once again back from the ‘dead’ as the Supreme Court during the Panama Papers case hearing had pointed out neglect on part of the National Accountability Bureau for not filing an appeal against where a division bench of the Lahore High Court quashed the reference.
Also the Joint Investigation Team which is investigating the foreign assets of the Sharif family had also received record of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills to look at them thoroughly. Amidst all this, sources claimed that the ruling party was mulling to raise the issue of impartiality and conflict of interest on part of a judge.
“There is a probability that a particular judge recuse himself from the case in near future citing that since he was deputy prosecutor general of the National Accountability Bureau when the reference was being probed after the repeated attacks,” they claimed. If such scenario becomes real, the bench would stand dissolved and the whole process will be back to square one, they said.
It is pertinent to mention here that the 6-member Joint Investigation Team has apprised Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan-led three member special bench of difficulties faced by the investigation team which included falsification of records during the last hearing.
Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed was appointed as NAB’s deputy prosecutor general in 2000 and special prosecutor in 2001 to prosecute cases in the accountability courts of the Attock Fort and Rawalpindi. “Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed was appointed in November, and a month later in December of 2000, the case was closed and he was never been in field,” said Chaudhary Faisal, a Supreme Court lawyer.
“So pertaining to that case he has nothing to do. NAB doesn’t have a single prosecutor, it has many. Even for the sake of argument, let us assume that he was, then the Sharif family had forgotten this during the months long hearing of Panama Papers case,” he said. A ‘systematic’ campaign has been launched by the ruling party to ‘discredit’ the sanctity and integrity of JIT, he claimed.
Supreme Court Advocate Majid Bashir said that it was true that back in the days, Justice Azmat used to appear on behalf of Nawaz Sharif and family before his appointment as the deputy prosecutor general of the NAB. However, “the issue at hand is that he was deputy prosecutor general when the case came to him and now that the Supreme Court has stretched its jurisdiction and as a result the Hudaibiya case too has come under the scope of investigation, he said.
He said that the Sharif family can take this objection that a particular judge may recuse himself as he was previously involved in it even at this stage. However, “when, where and at what juncture they’ll raise is of utmost importance. The thing to see is that whether there is a conflict of interest on part of judge or not,” he concluded.
