No justification for putting former prime minister on ECL: Marriyum

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb here Thursday said that only the names of the fugitives from law are put on the ECL and there is no justification in demanding the names of the former prime minister [Nawaz Sharif], his daughter and son-in-law to be put on ECL, who were appearing before the court thrice during the week and sometimes twice a day.

Talking to the media outside Accountability Court, the minister said that the interior ministry would examine whether the request by NAB fulfilled the requirements for putting the names on the ECL or not, and then take the decision accordingly. She added that for putting the names on ECL, they would have to look at the prescribed legal and constitutional procedures.

Marriyum said that the NAB had chosen to write the letter to the interior ministry when the cases were in their last phases and the verdicts were to be delivered. She asked that how could NAB know what would be the verdict of the court? adding that in her view, it should not have been done by NAB at this stage.

The minister further said that people were watching the filing of supplementary references one after the other, adding that they had neither found anything in the six references filed so far nor in the JIT reports. She also said that they even failed to ferret out anything from the boxes that the JIT presented in the Supreme Court.