ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed on Wednesday an appeal in the Supreme Court against the decision of the Lahore High Court (LHC) quashing the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against the Sharif family.
The petition names former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Shehbaz’s son and MNA Hamza Shehbaz, among other family members, as respondents.
The NAB has pleaded the SC to dismiss the LHC’s decision to quash the case and order a reinvestigation into the scam as per the new evidence which surfaced in the Panama case Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report.
On Friday, NAB assured the apex court that it will be filing the appeal in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case.
The assurance was made by the NAB prosecutor general during the hearing of Awami Muslim League (AML) leader Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed’s petition in the court seeking re-opening of the case.
The matter was heard by a five-judge bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa that was hearing review petitions against the court’s July 28 judgement in the Panama Papers case.
Earlier, Rasheed, one of three petitioners in the Panama Papers case, had moved the SC against NAB, accusing the anti-graft watchdog of failing to file an appeal in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case in accordance with the SC’s Panama Papers verdict.
The Joint Investigating Team (JIT) formed to probe allegations against the Sharif family in the Panama Papers case had recommended the reopening of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills reference. In its July 28 verdict in the Panama Papers case, the SC asked NAB to reopen the case as it filed other corruption references against the Sharif family and Ishaq Dar. The apex court had also criticised NAB for not challenging the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) decision to quash the case.
NAB had last month approved the filing of four references in line with the SC order, but it decided not to take any action regarding Hudaibiya Paper Mills on the grounds that the LHC had already decided the case.
Earlier, Sheikh Rasheed had said that the SC will take up the Hudaibiya Mills case if NAB fails to complete the investigation.
The Hudaibiya Paper Mills money laundering reference was initiated on the basis of a confessional statement of Ishaq Dar on April 25, 2000, in which he had admitted to his role in laundering money to the tune of $14.86 million on behalf of the Sharifs through fictitious accounts. The witness was, however, pardoned by the then NAB chairman.
While Nawaz Sharif was not named in the interim reference filed in March 2000, in the final reference against the Hudaibya Paper Mills — approved by then NAB chairman Khalid Maqbool — the bureau had accused Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Shamim Akhtar, Sabiha Abbas and Maryam Nawaz.
The LHC had quashed the case in 2014 as the PML-N continued to claim that Dar’s statement was taken under duress.