SC maintains Shahbaz's bail

The apex court on Tuesday maintained Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Shehbaz Sharif's bail as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) withdrew application for its cancellation in the Ashiana Iqbal and the Ramzan Sugar Mills cases.

At the end of his arguments, NAB Special Prosecutor Naeem Bukhari instead of pressing the petition for cancellation of ex-CM Punjab's bail said that paras 8 & 9 of the Lahore High Court judgment be expunged as those contained observations against the NAB.

A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, heard the NAB appeals against the Lahore High Court judgment. Accepting the NAB prosecutor's plea, the court disposed of the appeals, but said the Supreme Court has already declared that the High Court judgments on bail matters are of tentative nature and would not prejudice the merit of the case.

The NAB has challenged Lahore High Court (LHC) order dated 14-02-2019 in the Ashiana Iqbal and the Ramzan Sugar Mills cases to allow post-arrest bails to former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, and Fawad Hassan Fawad, the then secretary (implementation) to CM Punjab, in the Ashiana Iqbal Housing Scheme and the Ramzan Sugar Mills cases.

During the course of proceedings, the Chief Justice without taking name of Shahbaz Sharif said that the accused of this case who himself set up committee to inquire into the illegalities in the Ashiana Iqbal and then referred it to Anti-Corruption Establishment for further probe.

The Chief Justice observed that the former chief minister seems to be a good person, adding in this case many persons have been languishing in jail. The former CM prevented thousand of applicants of housing scheme from the damage. He questioned whether the project has been materialized. Naeem Bukhari told the court that it has not been started yet. The Chief Justice asked how a case was made out about the damage which was not caused.

Earlier, Naeem Bukhari contended that Shehbaz Sharif entrusted the project to LDA in order to award the contract of Ashiana Iqbal project to M/s Paragon Housing City (Pvt) Limited with active connivance of his close aide, accused Ahad Khan Cheema, the then DG LDA.

The NAB contended that Shehbaz Sharif time and again usurped the powers of PLDC Board to ensure that the project is undertaken as per his desires and the contract is awarded to his 'favourite' bidder. In December 2013, PLDC had initiated the bidding process for infrastructure development of the Ashiana Iqbal scheme.

The NAB claimed that Fawad received illegal pecuniary benefit of Rs 55 million from accused Kamran Kayani, the owner of M/s Conpro Service (Pvt) Ltd. The Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) had awarded the contract to the lowest bidder i.e. Chaudhry A Latif and Sons.

Meanwhile, the bench granted bail to Munir Zia, one of the directors of Bismillah Engineering. The court, however, dismissed Fawad Hassan Fawad's post-arrest bail in Rs 5 billion plaza case, as his counsel withdrew the petition to avoid Supreme Court observation that may prejudice his case before the Accountability Court.