ISLAMABAD: The Avenfield verdict that was announced on Friday by the accountability court sent the nation into a frenzy, however, according to a local media report, the 174-page detailed judgement against the Sharif family contains glaring typos, grammatical and spelling mistakes.
Throughout the judgment, Judge Muhammad Bashir referred to the Qatari prince as ‘Qattery’ prince. Also, he referred to Errol George, director of the Financial Investigation Agency (FIA) of the British Virgin Islands, as ‘Errel Jeorge’ or ‘Erel George’. Both the spellings are incorrect.
Furthermore, while acquitting Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam, and her husband Captain (r) Safdar of the charge of obtaining the London flats through ‘corrupt, dishonest, or illegal means’ under Section 9(a)(iv) of the National Accountability Ordinance, the judge left everybody guessing what he actually wanted to say.
“Prosecution have not bright evidence in respect of 9(a)(iv) NAO 1999. So the accused are acquitted under the section of law,” the judge wrote.
Whether he wanted to say that there was no evidence at all to prove this charge or it was insufficient is left to the readers’ imagination.
While rejecting the defence argument that certain mutual legal assistance (MLA) responses were not admissible in evidence, the judge wrote, “Response of MLA cannot be brushacite simply on technical grounds …” It left the readers’ guessing whether the judge intended to write ‘brushed aside’ or not.
He wrote ‘guild’ when he wanted to say ‘guilt’ and referred to Maryam’s father as ‘his father’.
“Maryam Nawaz was instrumental in concealment of the properties of his father …”
“All the objections raised by defence in respect of exhibited documents stand overruled,” he wrote at one place.
At another page he wrote, “[The] JIT found contradictions and anomalies those arte mentioned at pages 5 to 21.”
He further said, “The trust deeds are filed to mislead the court and does not prepared on date noted in this deed”
These and several other errors in the judgment could be due to haste in which it was written and compiled.
The Avenfield reference was filed by NAB on September 8 last year and the court started hearing it regularly from September 14. Following 10 months of proceedings and roughly 80 plus appearances by the accused, the defence concluded their final arguments in the case on July 3.
On Friday, it was expected that the verdict would be announced in the morning if the judge was going to dismiss the plea by the Sharifs to delay it for a week.
When he dismissed that application shortly before 11 am, he announced that the judgement would be out at 12:30 pm. But was given the new time of 2:30 and got delayed till 4:20 pm.
“It is to certify that this judgment is comprising upon 174 pages. Each page has been signed by me after making necessary corrections therein wherever required,” read Judge Bashir’s note at the end of the judgment.
Seeing all these errors in his judgment, many think the judge should have taken his time to write and proofread the verdict as it would be perused by many in the times to come.