ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Curt (IHC) on Thursday disposed of former prime minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif's petition challenging his non-bailable arrest warrants issued by an Accountability Court after he withdrew it. A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Aamer Farooq heard the ex-PM's petition against the Accountability Court's order of his non-bailable arrest warrants in Toshakhana reference.
Nawaz Sharif also requested the IHC to permit him to join the Toshakhana reference proceedings through his pleader. In the last hearing, CJ Minallah had raised question about bail granted by the IHC in Al-Azizia reference.
At the onset of the hearing, Nawaz Sharif's counsel Barrister Jahangir Jadoon requested the bench to allow him to withdraw the petition against the Accountability Court's verdict. He said he had been instructed to withdraw the petition. The bench accepting his request disposed of the petition.
The former premier is facing a case related to securing a luxury vehicle from Toshakhana before the Accountability Court. Nawaz Sharif and former president and co-chairperson of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari had obtained cars from Toshakhana by paying only 15 percent of the price of the luxury vehicles.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) alleged that ex-PM Yousaf Raza Gillani facilitated the allotment of the vehicles to Zardari and Sharif by "dishonestly" and "illegally" relaxing the procedure for the acceptance and disposal of gifts vide a Cabinet Division memorandum of 2007.
The accountability court-III of Islamabad had issued non-bailable warrants for the PML-N leader for not attending the court's proceeding in the reference, and had also initiated the process to declare him a proclaimed offender.
According to the petition, the Toshakhana reference was an offshoot of the fake accounts case in which the joint investigation team did not establish anything against the former prime minister. Yet the name of the PML-N's supreme leader surfaced "surprisingly" in the reference, it argued, adding that the accountability judge initially summoned him, and later issued his non-bailable arrest warrants.
The petition contended that the IHC granted Nawaz Sharif bail on October 29, 2019, on medical grounds, yet the accountability court judge initiated the process to declare the leader of the main opposition party, a proclaimed offender under Section 87 of the criminal procedure code (CrPC). It recalled that Sharif did not abscond but went to the UK on November 19, 2019, for medical treatment "with the approval of the Government of Pakistan".
The PML-N leader's counsel adopted, "The bailable, non-bailable arrest warrant and further proclamation under Section 87 of CrPC is the impugned interference in the life and liberty of the petitioner and he has been deprived from his constitutional and fundamental rights, because the petitioner did not conceal himself from any process of the law. The petitioner always holds the rule of law supreme in his life."
The petition said, "The proclamation order dated June 30, 2020 in respect of the petitioner issued by respondent No. 2 [accountability judge] is of the alleged irregularity; hence, on the face of it all the impugned orders seems to be issued due to personal vendetta, victimisation, mala fides, with malice aforethought of the respondent No. 1 [NAB's chairman]." Therefore, the petition prayed before the court to declare the arrest warrants illegal and as the ex-premier himself desired to join the proceeding of the accountability court, he be allowed to do this through the pleader.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
Comments
Comments are closed.