IHC puts off hearing of Avenfield case till December 21

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) accepted on Wednesday Maryam Nawaz’s lawyer’s request to adjourn the hearing of her appeal against conviction in the Avenfield apartments case to a later date.

A two-member bench of the IHC was to hear the appeals filed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president and her husband Capt (retd) Safdar against their sentence in the Avenfield reference today.

The high court was also set to hear the National Accountability Bureau’s appeal regarding the cancellation of Maryam and her spouse’s bail.

However, due to the request put forth by Maryam’s attorney the hearing has been postponed till December 21.

Earlier this week, Maryam’s counsel Advocate Irfan Qadir had filed an application before the IHC requesting that the hearing be on any date except November 24 as he was supposed to appear before the Supreme Court on that day.

Read Contempt of court petition filed against Maryam, Abbasi

“The Honorable Supreme Court of Pakistan issued a cause list according to which two cases of the undersigned counsel have been fixed before the bench no. 2 at the principal seat of the apex court on the same date…as such it would not be possible for the undersigned to be present before this Honorable Court on November 24,” the application filed by Irfan read.

He, therefore, requested the IHC that the case “may graciously be adjourned” to any other date convenient for the IHC.

However, two days ago, Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry took to his official Twitter handle and blamed Maryam for seeking several adjournments since August 2018 when she first filed an appeal before the IHC against her conviction in the Avenfield apartment case.

“16th application to seek adjournment from Maryam Nawaz, and organised propaganda against judiciary and armed forces, hence these people are not less than Sicilian Mafia,” he wrote.