ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Saqib Nisar on Saturday formed a new three-member bench to hear National Accountability Bureau (NAB) appeal to reopen Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against deposed prime minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif and his family members.
The bench will be headed by Justice Mushir Alam, while other members include Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mian Alam Khel.
The hearing on the appeal will be conducted on November 28.
Earlier, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa excused himself from the three-member bench that was formed to hear the petition filed by NAB against the Lahore High Court’s decision to quash the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against the Sharif family. As the court proceedings went underway, Justice Khosa observed that he had already been part of the bench who had delivered the verdict in the Panama Papers case and it would thus be inappropriate for him to take up this case.
The court had then referred the case back to the CJP to form a new bench to continue with the hearing of the appeal.
NAB’s appeal
The anti-graft institution had on Sept 20 filed an appeal in the SC against the decision of the Lahore High Court (LHC) quashing the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against the Sharif family.
The petition had named ousted 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 had 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 Papers case Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report.
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 LHC’s decision to quash the case.
Hudaibiya Paper Mills case
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.
