Sharif family assets: Supreme Court upholds LHC verdict, orders return of documents

Dismissing an appeal by the National Accountability Bureau on Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld the Lahore High Court decision to release assets of PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and his family, issuing directive to the Bureau for returning the property documents of Sharif brothers.
The Lahore High Court had directed the NAB to return the Sharifs' shares certificates worth Rs 100 million, prize bonds worth Rs 115 million, documents pertaining to land in Murree, Chaudhry Sugar Mills, Hudabiya Engineering Services, Hamza Shipping Corporation and Ramzan Sugar Mills, etc, declaring that the NAB had no authority to declare the property of a citizen as seized after his acquittal from cases.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was hearing a plea regarding the confiscation of properties of Nawaz Sharif, his wife Begum Kulsoom Nawaz and brother Shahbaz Sharif and other family members. During the course of hearing, Prosecutor General NAB K K Agha appeared before the bench and presented an agreement between PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and the Federal government, arguing that the NAB seized all the properties on the directions of the Federal government in 2001.
Agha also argued that the LHC had committed an error in concluding that there existed no agreement between Nawaz Sharif and the Federal government, adding that the LHC had ignored the Supreme Court judgement, which had made the existence of such an agreement crystal clear.
He further pleaded that the releasing of properties pertaining to the case in hand would provide an opportunity to all those involved in similar cases to also get their assets released. The bench responded by saying that the assets related to security clearly fell in the SC's jurisdiction, instead of the NAB. The Chief Justice observed that the NAB had failed in producing proper documents required to plead before the bench, adding that the papers contained the signatures of only Sharif brothers.
The bench declared the presence of the Sharif family assets in custody as an unlawful and unconstitutional act on behalf of the NAB and observed that LHC has heard the cases against the Sharif family and had released them, so there was no case left against them.
The bench directed the concerned authorities to release the assets of the Sharif brothers immediately, adding that the assets of other parties could not be seized in the reference against Nawaz Sharif. However, it was observed that any outstanding penalty charges should be recovered from Nawaz Sharif.
It is worth mentioning that an Accountability Court on July 22, 2000 had sentenced Nawaz Sharif to 14 years rigorous imprisonment with a Rs 20 million fine in the helicopter case. While in plane hijacking case, an Anti-Terrorism Court of Karachi convicted him on April 6, 2000, and awarded him life imprisonment, Rs 500,000 fine and attachment of his movable and immovable property. The conviction, however, was set aside by Supreme Court on October 30, 2000. The Sharif family pleaded in the court that in spite of the fact that the conviction was set aside by the Supreme Court the NAB was not releasing their seized properties.