ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has asked the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to explain why it remained standstill after the filing of the Rs1.2 billion Hudaibya reference against members of the Sharif family and until the time they were sent into exile during the era of former president Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf.
A three-judge Supreme Court bench – comprising Justices Mushir Alam, Qazi Faez Isa and Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel – that had taken up the bureau’s appeal for reopening of the controversial reference also asked NAB to convince the court how the Sharifs could have wielded influence that caused the 2000 reference to remain in the cold storage until it was finally quashed by the Lahore High Court in 2014.
NAB prosecutor Imranul Haq who pleaded the appeal before the court had no answer to the questions raised by the court. Even the prosecutor was without the actual reference No.5 of 2000, commonly known as the Hudaibya reference, saying it was not relevant. But to court it was relevant which called Volume 8(A) of the report of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) appointed by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case.
Was NAB expecting that it would file the appeal and the court would simply pass an order, Justice Alam regretted, saying that the bureau should have come up with a justification for its appeal.
The prosecutor, however, argued that the questions raised had been dealt with in the Panama Papers case by the Supreme Court. But Justice Isa retorted that the court was not hearing the Panama Papers case.
Consequently the Supreme Court ordered NAB to come up with a concise statement by Dec 11 supported by documents showing specific dates and period when the respondents, including ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, were holding top offices and were sent to exile.
NAB filed the reference on March 27, 2000 whereas the Sharif family’s members were sent into exile in December 2000.
