Imran's plea on £190m record closure accepted

With this development, IHC's stay order preventing accountability court from issuing verdict in case has been lifted

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has approved PTI founder Imran Khan's request for the record related to the approval to close the £190 million reference, providing a copy to the petitioner's legal team.

With this development, the IHC's stay order preventing the accountability court from issuing a final verdict in the case has been lifted.

A division bench of the IHC comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Babar Sattar heard Imran's petition.

The petition adopted the stance that approval to close the case was granted in the April 2020 National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Executive Board meeting, for which the record was not being provided.

It added that an application had been submitted to the accountability court for the provision of record, which was turned down.

The IHC accepted Imran's request after which NAB prosecutors submitted the record before the court. The copy of the record was provided to the petitioner's lawyers.

The anti-graft watchdog had closed the case when the PTI founder was the prime minister of the country.

During the last hearing, the IHC had restrained the accountability court from issuing the final ruling in the case.

Separately, the IHC dismissed a petition challenging the arrest of the PTI founder and his wife Bushra Bibi in the new Toshakhana case, declaring it infructuous.

Earlier, NAB had filed a reference against the couple in the accountability court.

During the hearing, PTI's lawyer Salman Safdar and NAB prosecutors presented their arguments.