LAHORE: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Aitzaz Ahsan on Monday said that if ‘lenient’ decisions like the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case kept coming, the masses’ confidence over the courts would [fruther] decrease.
Talking to reporters outside the Lahore High Court, Senator Ahsan said the court’s verdict pertaining to Hudaibiya case was beyond comprehension, as he expressed reservations over the dismissal of the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) appeal to re-open the Hudaibiya case.
“The Sharif family was let loose in the case whereas in criminal cases this [thing] does not happen,” he said while terming “the Lahore High Court’s [earlier] decision with regard to the case wrong” as well.
Further criticising the apex court, Senator Ahsan said, “Jahangir Tareen presented his money trail, while Nawaz Sharif, on the other hand, did not even produce a single sheet of paper in evidence [in Hudaibiya case].”
Taking a dig at Chief Justice Saqib Nisar recent “clarification” in the aftermath of Imran-Tareen disqualification and Hudiabiya decision, the senator remarked, “Trust is established through verdicts, not clarifications.”
He said that it seemed as if the chief justice got angered quite a lot and “in his anger he mentioned Baba Rahmat.”
CJP Nisar had recently said the judiciary was akin to an elder, wise person whose advice everyone sought, and urged the public to stop doubting the integrity of the judiciary and criticising the judiciary for verdicts against them.
The Rs1.2 billion Hudaibiya Paper Mills case, involving money laundering charges against the Sharif family, was initiated by NAB in 2000, but quashed by the Lahore High Court (LHC) in 2014. The NAB had appealed the LHC decision in the Supreme Court, which was dismissed this Friday.