NAB's references against Sharifs riddled with gaffes

Registrar's office says many pages submitted with the same reference twice, some important pages missing

There are major mistakes in the references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the Sharif family with an accountability court, Express News has learnt.

The judge of the accountability court has ordered the registrar office to scrutinise the references until September 14.

According to sources in the registrar's office, there are several mistakes in the references. Many pages have been submitted with the same reference twice. Besides, some important pages of the references have been found to be missing.

On September 7, NAB had submitted four corruption references against the Sharif family and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in Islamabad’s accountability court.

The references were prepared in light of the July 28 judgement of the Supreme Court in the Panamagate case.



Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir had directed the graft watchdog to submit complete documents along with references after being informed by the registrar that the documents were found incomplete during the initial scrutiny process.

The references were produced in several sealed boxes with different titles on them. All four references along with the related documents have been produced for the registrar to scrutinise. Once vetted, the reference will be forwarded to the accountability court for further proceedings.

n its July 28 judgment, the apex court had directed the top graft buster to file references against Sharif, his sons, daughter Maryam Nawaz, son-in-law Capt (retd) Safdar and Ishaq Dar within six weeks. In pursuance of the verdict, NAB’s regional offices in Lahore and Rawalpindi prepared four references.

According to the NAB statement, one of the references had to be filed against Sharif, Maryam, Hussain, Hassan, and Capt (retd) Safdar relating to the Avenfield Properties comprising flat No 16 and 16-A, 17 and 17-A Avenfield House at Park Lane area of London.

Another reference would be against Nawaz and Hussain with regard to the establishment of Azizia Steel Company and Hill Metal Company. NAB’s third reference was against the deposed premier, Hussain and Hassan with regard to the companies mentioned in paragraph 9 of the judgment.

“The fourth reference would be filed against respondent No 10 [Ishaq Dar] for possessing assets beyond his known sources of income. The officers concerned were directed for an efficient and professional handling of the entire process in the laid down time limit,” read the statement.