ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court will commence on Monday the hearing of a long-awaited petition filed by the National Accountability Bureau seeking review of its verdict rejecting NAB’s appeal in the Rs1.2 billion Hudaibya corruption case.

A three-judge SC bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel had rejected the NAB appeal on Jan 5 against the quashment of the Hudaibya paper mills reference by the Lahore High Court in 2014.

The 39-page NAB review petition, which was filed through special prosecutor Imran-ul-Haq, argued that the Jan 5 judgement of the Supreme Court in the Hudaibya case was in conflict with the Panama Papers case verdict issued by a larger bench and was, therefore, required to be revisited.

NAB seeks to expunge four paragraphs from the apex court judgement in the case

The petition emphasised that the Sharifs were never subjected to intensive investigation because they had never been taken into custody by NAB in the Hudaibya reference.

The review petition also sought to expunge paragraphs 6, 23, 27 and 32 from the SC judgement in the Hudaibya case by arguing that these seemed to be “superfluous and irrelevant”.

The SC judgement in para 6 dealt with how Gen Pervez Musharraf had ousted a democratically elected government on Oct 12, 1999 as the then army chief and proclaimed emergency on Oct 14, 1999, put the Constitution in abeyance, suspended the Senate and national and provincial assemblies, dismissed the prime minister, all the governors, chief ministers, federal and provincial ministers and also issued a Provisional Constitution Order (PCO).

Just a month after assuming power, Gen Musharraf enacted the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 and appointed serving General Mohammad Amjad to head the National Accountability Bureau as its chairman, the SC judgement had stated.

The NAB review petition highlighted that the SC had discarded the confessional statement of former finance minister Ishaq Dar on wrong premise, as it was recorded before a magistrate after the grant of pardon by the NAB chairman as required under Section 26 of NAO 1999. “It is a normal practice of recording statement of approver before magistrate even in ordinary criminal cases though not required by specific provision of the Criminal Procedure Code,” the petition argued.

The important provision of law had been overlooked by the Supreme Court in the judgement under review and, on the contrary, wrong interpretation on the subject had been endorsed and approved, which was an error floating on the surface of the judgement and, therefore, needed to be rectified, the petition said.

Moreover, the detailed judgement was also in conflict with the settled principle of law that when a case was not considered maintainable on technical grounds, the court should not embark upon merits of the case. If this court entered into deliberation of case on merits, then it should have sought guidance from the judgement rendered by this court in the Panama Papers case, the petition argued.

It stated that the Supreme Court had declined NAB’s appeal not merely on the grounds of limitation but also dismissed the same on merit. The petition argued that if the apex court was inclined to decide the case on merit, then notice to the respondents was sine quo non (an essential condition).

In its judgement, the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that legal process was abused and due process was denied to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and other respondents through “protracted” proceedings in the Hudaibya reference.

However, the review petition emphasised: “There is not an iota of evidence that NAB has any animosity against the respondents and, therefore, the reference in the judgement is incorrect.”

In its review petition, NAB held the Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the regime of former president Gen Pervez Musharraf responsible for keeping the Hudaibya corruption reference against the Sharif family adjourned for an indefinite period.

This was the reason why the NAB authorities did not show interest in prosecution of the reference, the petition explained. “Keeping the reference 5 of 2000 (Hudaibya reference) adjourned sine die was a collusive arrangement of PPP, PML-N and regime of Gen Pervez Musharraf,” it contended.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2018

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