Arrest warrants for Nawaz in Chaudhry Sugar Mills case

Published October 11, 2019
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has issued arrest warrants of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Chaudhry Sugar Mills case and is likely to present him before an accountability court today (Friday). — AFP/File
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has issued arrest warrants of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Chaudhry Sugar Mills case and is likely to present him before an accountability court today (Friday). — AFP/File

LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has issued arrest warrants of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Chaudhry Sugar Mills case and is likely to present him before an accountability court today (Friday).

Sources said the NAB chairman had issued arrest warrants of Mr Sharif in the case and a team of Lahore bureau would visit him in the Kot Lakhpat jail on Friday to take him to the accountability court for his physical remand.

Mr Sharif is serving a seven-year imprisonment in Al-Azizia Mills corruption case. NAB has already arrested his daughter Maryam Nawaz and nephew Yousuf Abbas in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case. Both of them are on judicial remand till Oct 23.

NAB mainly accused Maryam of being involved in money laundering under the garb of sale/purchase of the sugar mills’ shares. It said she had become the largest shareholder of the mills in 2008, having over 12m shares and her assets had been found disproportionate to her income.

It said the mills was shifted from Gojra to Rahim Yar Khan in 2015 at a cost of Rs1.5bn and this amount had not so far been justified by the suspects.

On the other hand, Maryam’s counsel challenged the jurisdiction of NAB to investigate matters of companies. He said sale and purchase of shares was in accordance with laws of the Security & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and the Companies Act 2017 and argued that power to investigate into any irregularity of a sugar mills vested with the SECP.

He said all financial affairs of the mills had already been thoroughly investigated by a JIT formed by the Supreme Court in Panama Papers case.

Any further inquiry into the same matter would amount to double jeopardy, he argued.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2019

Opinion

Editorial

Trump 2.0
Updated 07 Nov, 2024

Trump 2.0

It remains to be seen how his promises to bring ‘peace’ to Middle East reconcile with his blatantly pro-Israel bias.
Fait accompli
07 Nov, 2024

Fait accompli

A SLEW of secretively conceived and hastily enacted legislation has achieved its intended result: the powers of the...
IPP contracts
07 Nov, 2024

IPP contracts

THE government expects the ongoing ‘negotiations’ with power producers aimed at revising the terms of sovereign...
Rushed legislation
Updated 06 Nov, 2024

Rushed legislation

For all its stress on "supremacy of parliament", the ruling coalition has wasted no opportunity to reiterate where its allegiances truly lie.
Jail reform policy
06 Nov, 2024

Jail reform policy

THE state is making a fresh attempt to improve conditions in Pakistan’s penitentiaries by developing a national...
BISP overhaul
06 Nov, 2024

BISP overhaul

IT has emerged that the spouses of over 28,500 Sindh government employees have been illicitly benefiting from BISP....