The Supreme Court Monday rejected a petition filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) seeking review of apex court’s verdict on an appeal filed for reopening of the Hudaibya Paper Mills reference.
A three-judge bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel had rejected the NAB appeal on Jan 5 against the quashment of the Rs 1.2 billion Hudaibya corruption reference by the Lahore High Court in 2014. The same bench heard the review petition on Monday.
The 39-page NAB review petition, which was filed through special prosecutor Imran-ul-Haq, argued that the Jan 5 judgement of the top court in the Hudaibya case was in conflict with the Panama Papers case verdict issued by a larger bench and was, therefore, required to be revisited.
At the outset of the hearing, the bench asked the NAB prosecutor to point out flaws in the judgement. Haq argued that the accused in the corruption reference had never been indicted. “It’s your own doing, you may delay the indictment for years if you wish,” Justice Isa told Haq, observing that the bureau had failed to proceed with indicting the accused even though the Hudaibya reference was filed in the year 2000.
Justice Isa noted that it was during the rule of an army general that the reference was filed. “There was no political pressure on NAB not to file the reference,” he remarked.
The reference was filed against members of the Sharif family in 2000 over the opening of benami foreign currency accounts in 1992. The bench asked the NAB whether it was a crime to open foreign currency accounts abroad. “No, it is not a crime,” Haq responded.
After the NAB prosecutor failed to satisfy the bench, the court rejected the review petition.
Published in Daily Times, October 30th 2018.
