NAB’s appeal against Sharifs dismissed

The bureau insists paper mill shares should not have been returned to the Sharifs.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the return of Hudabiya Paper Mills’ shares to the Sharifs by the Lahore High Court (LHC).

The NAB appeal in the apex court challenged the Lahore High Court’s verdict delivered on October 4, 2011 for returning shares of the mill worth Rs115 million.

The appeal listed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and at least a dozen family members as respondents.

Shares for agreement

NAB stated that the LHC committed an error in deciding “that there was no agreement/settlement between Mian Nawaz Sharif and the federal government”. The LHC ignored the SC’s judgment, which clearly proved the existence of such an agreement, the appeal stated.

“We want to see if the Lahore High Court returned the Hudabiya Paper Mills’ shares (belonging to the Sharifs) in violation of the agreement,” submitted NAB Prosecutor General KK Agha.

Agha informed the bench that he believed that Nawaz had given the Hudabiya shares to NAB in exchange for the agreement, and hence, the shares should not have been returned to the Sharifs.

The chief justice, however, observed that the bureau failed to produce any document indicating an understanding between NAB and Nawaz, or his family.

Convicted, reversed

The members of Sharifs family, whose shares in Hudabiya were confiscated, had moved LHC for the return of properties confiscated by NAB in 2001.

They said NAB had seized the properties in order to recover the fine an accountability court and an anti-terrorism court had imposed on the PML-N chief in cases pertaining to the plane hijacking and illegal purchase of a Russian helicopter.

An accountability court on July 22, 2000 sentenced Nawaz to 14 years imprisonment and Rs20 million in fine in the helicopter case. In the plane hijacking case, an anti-terrorism court in Karachi convicted Nawaz on April 6, 2000, and awarded him life imprisonment, Rs500,000 in fine and attachment of his movable and immovable property. The Supreme Court had set aside the conviction in the plane-hijacking case on July 17, 2009, while the judgment in the helicopter case was reversed by the Lahore High Court on June 26, 2009.

The Sharifs later submitted that despite reversal of the conviction, NAB was not returning their properties.

Dismissing the NAB appeal, the chief justice observed that since Nawaz’s sentence was set aside, the bureau could not have taken the shares of other family members.

“We see no force in NAB’s appeal. Dismissed,” the chief justice said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2012.