For their counterattack on the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the Sharif brothers will have to wait a little longer.
The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi Bench here on Thursday could not take up three identical petitions filed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members against pending NAB references.
A division bench of Justice Saghir Ahmed Qadri and Justice Syed Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi was to take up the petitions but the hearing was postponed as Justice Naqvi was on leave. The LHC on October 18 stopped the accountability court from taking up any proceedings in the three corruption references till the final decision of the petitions but at the same time allowed the NAB to go forward with opening the cases adjourned in 2008.
Besides Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Haroon Pasha and Senator Ishaq Dar are co-accused in the Hudabia Paper Mills case. They are charged with securing a large loan in the name of the mill and using it elsewhere.
In the Ittifaq Foundry corruption reference, Nawaz Sharif, Abbas Sharif, Mukhtar Hassan, Kamal Qureshi and other persons are accused of securing big loans and using them elsewhere.
In the assets reference case, Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, their late father Mian Sharif, mother Shamim Akhtar and other family members are charged with accumulation of wealth beyond their declared means of income.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 18th, 2011.
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