ISLAMABAD: The accoun­ta­bility court on Monday allowed the investigation officer of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to submit only the material collected and referred to by the Joint Investigation Team on the basis of which the Avenfield properties reference had been filed.

Deciding an objection raised by Advocate Khawaja Haris Ahmed, the lead counsel for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Judge Mohammad Bashir ruled that the NAB investigation officer might “give at the most, statement to the extent of material collected and referred to by JIT in its report, on the basis of which reference in hand is filed”.

Earlier, NAB investigation officer Mohammad Imran was produced before the court as the last prosecution witness in the Avenfield apartments reference.

When Mr Imran said he had collected the JIT report from its head Wajid Zia to place it on record, the defence counsel pointed out that the investigation officer had neither authored the report nor was he a witness to the JIT investigation.

He said the investigation officer could not produce the JIT report as evidence. The defence counsel, however, said the JIT head had already produced this report before the court.

The prosecution and the defence counsel also arg­ued over what comprised “court-worthy evidence”.

Advocate Haris argued that the National Accoun­tability Ordinance (NAO) defined a certain procedure to make evidence court-worthy. He said that an official had to certify in the seizure memo that he collected material from the possession of a person in the presence of an eyewitness to make it court-worthy evidence.

He said that the JIT report was a separate investigation and it could not be used by the NAB investigation officer in this case.

Advocate Sardar Muzaffar said the JIT prepared its report on the direction of the Supreme Court. He said it was not just an investigation report but sort of an inquiry conducted by a commission.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2018