RAWALPINDI: The Lahore High Court here on Tuesday directed the lawyer representing Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif to complete his arguments in the petition for quashing Ittifaq Foundries corruption reference against the Sharifs by Wednesday.
Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmed and Justice Muhammad Farrukh Irfan Khan asked Suleman Aslam Butt representing the leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-N to conclude his arguments and directed the National Accountability Bureau to start their arguments.
During the arguments Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmed observed the petitioners were rich enough to pay back the Rs3.8 billion loan they had obtained from the National Bank of Pakistan for the Ittifaq Foundries through an agreement during the last tenure of PML-N.
In response advocate Butt said the petitioners had ever been ready to pay back the loan and they had offered the foundries for sale.
Arguing for the annulment of the reference the lawyer said the PML-N leader never defaulted willfully as alleged by the NAB. The petitioners were ready to pay back the loan after selling their foundries and had invited the bids in this regard.
Regarding the inordinate delay on the part of the prosecution the lawyer said it was against the fundamental rights to delay the trial for indefinite time as the references were adjourned sine die in 2000 and till then there had been no proceedings.
Talking to the media after the hearing, Butt said the property owned by Sharif brothers was attached by the accountability trial court and they had decided to sell the assets of Ittifaq Foundries to pay back the loans.
The Sharifs have filed two other petitions against the corruption references of Hudybia Paper Mills and assets beyond declared sources of income.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2012.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
So it was an 'accidental' loan default? What a convincing argument.