IHC orders court to decide Sharif’s pleas afresh

Directs court to hear the parties and decide the case afresh in line with Section 17-D of the NAB ordinance

ISLAMABAD: Deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif scored a rare, albeit brief, legal victory on Thursday as the Islamabad High Court (IHC) set aside the accountability court’s order of October 19 and directed it to decide Sharif’s three applications afresh.

A division bench, comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, allowed Sharif’s petitions and set aside the accountability court order “to the extent of deciding the application filed by the petitioners regarding the joinder of charges”.

The decision comes a day before the hearing of the three National Accountability Bureau (NAB) references against Sharif. During a hearing on October 19, Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir dismissed three applications by the Sharif’s lawyers.

In one application, the lawyer requested for a stay on the trial until the release of a detailed order by the Supreme Court on a review petition filed against the apex court’s July 28 verdict in the Panama Papers case.

The defence side had also requested the court that it was not the time to frame charges against Sharif as they had not been provided with the copies of relevant documents. In the third application, Sharif’s counsel appealed to the court to combine the three NAB references into one.



Challenging the trial court’s order, Sharif, through his counsel Azam Nazir Tarrar and Amjad Pervez, sought the IHC’s directions for the accountability court to frame joint charges and conduct a single trial against the Sharifs. He also sought suspension of proceedings till framing of the joint charges.

“The applications filed by the petitioners shall be deemed to be pending before the learned Trial Court and the same shall be decided in accordance with mandate of Section 17 (d) National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 and the applicable laws expeditiously,” the IHC’s order read.

During the IHC proceedings on Thursday, NAB raised objections to the maintainability of the petition, while the former prime minister’s counsel argued in favour of consolidating the three references into one.

“Facts are different, accused are different, references cannot be joined. There is no nexus between the references,” NAB Prosecutor Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi said, while responding to Justice Farooq’s query if charges could be consolidated. “The accused cannot insist on joinder of charges,” Abbasi said.

The NAB prosecutor said separate references were filed as per instructions from the Supreme Court given in its July 28 judgment, adding that a review petition filed by the accused had been dismissed by the apex court so the July 28 decision attained finality.



The prosecutor informed the court that the petitioner did not raise these points before the apex court in his review petition, adding however a separate petition was filed on the same grounds.

Responding to this, the accused’s counsels Azam Nazir Tarar and Amjad Pervez said the registrar office of the Supreme Court raised objections on their counsel’s petition and the same has not been placed for hearing.

“Facts are different, accused are different, references cannot be joined, there is no nexus between the references,” the NAB prosecutor said in response to Justice Aamir Farooq’s question if the charges can be consolidated. “The accused can’t insist on joinder of charges.”

To this the IHC judge asked if all these things had been discussed in the order by the trial court. The defence counsels however said it was not the case.



In his arguments, Tarrar told the court that the July 28 judgment stated that “from now on the law shall take its own course”, adding that it was not stated anywhere in the order that the trial court shall proceed in haste.

“Under the law, NAB should decide any reference in a month’s time whereas the SC has extended it to six months,” he explained. “It should not be the case where one should put references in a machine from one side and take out sentence from the other.”

Tarrar cited several superior court judgments and emphasised on one case of the Sindh High Court which consolidated 49 NAB references against dozens of accused into one. He said the allegations of having assets disproportionate to the known sources of income were same in all references.

“Courts should be impartial and they should not be playing prosecution’s role even though the prosecution wants judges to grill the accused,” he said. To this, Justice Farooq quipped an accused is the court’s favourite child.

Referring to the trial court’s order, Tarrar said the judge indicted the accused separately “for his own convenience”, adding that the trial court did not give any reasons in its order and ignored all the contentions raised before it.



“Allegations are same, set of accused is same, some of the witnesses are same and a lot of evidence is also originating from similar sources. It will be tantamount to exposing all the defence to a witness when he appears in one reference and then comes back for testimony in another reference.”

Stressing that the SHC ruled to protect the rights of accused, Tarrar said the accused shouldn’t be exposed to double prosecution. “The SC has stated nowhere that the procedures of the trial court should be dispensed with.”

The bench asked what impact it would have if the accused were convicted in all three references, separately, and the sentences run concurrently. “The court can give consecutive sentences as well [but] it would jeopardise the rights of accused,” Tarrar replied.

He informed the bench that it was contended before the trial court that “leaving aside the fact that Nawaz was the former prime minister he should at least have rights of a common citizen” and there should be only one reference.