ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday rejected a petition by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the acquittal of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Chaudhry Sher Ali in a case pertaining to illegal allotment of land.
A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, noted that the accountability watchdog had been “unsuccessful” in presenting a case against the former Faisalabad mayor.
During the hearing, Justice Khosa said that a link between the suspect and the persons whose lands were allegedly illegally allotted by him “could not be proven”.
He said that not even one witnesses had said that they had recorded their statements under duress from Ali, adding: “If NAB’s own witnesses say this, why does the suspect even need a defense team?”
“The suspect’s job is to prove his assets. It is NAB’s responsibility to prove assets that don’t belong to the suspect,” the chief justice remarked.
The prosecutor said that Ali had made illegal allotments. However, the chief justice responded: “Being the mayor doesn’t mean that every wrong thing [done while he was mayor] will put on his account. He was mayor in 1983 and the case was formed in 2000.”
Earlier in 2002, a Rawalpindi court had awarded a five-year jail term to Ali with a fine of Rs100 million on charges of accumulation of assets through corruption while holding a public office. He had also been disqualified from holding any public office or applying for any financial facility from a state-controlled DFI for a period of 10 years.
In another case, he was sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs20 million.
