Sharif counts CJP among detractors hindering progress

Says new Pakistan would emerge if PML-N was allowed to implement its agenda

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said that Pakistan’s progress has persistently been hindered by detractors like a former president, military dictators and now the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP).

Sharif asserted that a new Pakistan could have emerged if his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had been allowed to implement its agenda for a decade or two.

“God is my witness and with utmost humbleness I say that by now the country would have become a new Pakistan. But in this country, who lets you do your work!” he said while speaking to reporters outside the accountability court on Monday.

“Leg-pullers have always been busy in leg-pulling … sometimes in the shape of the former president, sometimes military dictators and now the judiciary, oh not the judiciary, [Chief Justice] Saqib Nisar is doing this,” Sharif said, adding that the media might censor that part of his speech.

He wondered how long this censorship would last.

Criticising the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), he said its leaders were peddling ‘someone else’s agenda’ during the Sunday night rally in Lahore. He said the crowd did not belong to Lahore at all, and people had been brought from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

“Jalsa Lahore da, Majma Pishor da te agenda kisay hor da,” he quipped in Punjabi, meaning the rally was staged in Lahore but the crowd was brought from Peshawar on someone else’s agenda.

The former PM also mocked the PTI claims of progress in KP and said the “PML-N has always pushed forward the agenda of progress”. He maintained that he could have changed Pakistan for the better if he had not been ousted.



He said Punjab excelled in development when compared with Sindh, K-P and Balochistan.

Sharif also lamented that Pakistan ranked at the bottom over developing good relations with neighbouring countries. “We have learnt nothing from the past. [Even] India and China are developing friendly, bilateral ties,” he said.

Court proceedings

Earlier, the accountability court resumed hearing of the Sharif family’s trial in connection with the three references filed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Judge Muhammad Bashir maintained that the NAB investigation officer could not bring the entire report compiled by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) on record, telling him that he could produce documents collected by it.

The judge also decided an application filed by the former prime minister.

The applicant, through his counsel Khawaja Haris, contended that the cross-examination of the investigation officer in Avenfield reference before JIT head Wajid Zia’s statement and cross-examination in two the other references would expose the defence.

“The IO can at most give statement to the extent of material collected and referred to by the JIT in its report, on the basis of which reference in hand is filed,” Judge Bashir stated in the order. “He can pinpoint material collected and referred to by JT in each volume of its report.”

NAB prosecutor Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi and Haris argued when investigation officer Imran Doagr (IO) stood in the witness box for recording his statement.

Dogar contended that an investigation was authorised against Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Captain (retd) Safdar, Hassan Nawaz and Hussain Nawaz in the Avenfield reference by the competent authority.



When he said that the complete JIT report was collected from the Supreme Court and volumes one to nine were made part of the Avenfield reference, Haris objected, saying how an IO could exhibit the JIT report along with the reference while recording his statement. He said the JIT report was an investigation report and could not be filed as evidence.

Following arguments, the court reserved its verdict for a while and later announced that the IO could only bring on record the documents collected by the JIT and not the complete report.

The hearing was adjourned till May 2.