Daily Times

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday adjourned the hearing of a petition filed by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) lawmaker Sharmila Farooqui against her possible disqualification due to a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) reference.

During the hearing, the additional attorney general submitted that at the time when Sharmila and NAB entered into a plea bargain, there was no disqualification punishment.

After hearing the arguments, the court put off the hearing until December 1.

In the outset hearing, the court had sought the details of the plea bargain between Sharmila and the NAB in a corruption reference. Earlier, the PPP lawmaker had moved the court against the corruption watchdog for writing to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Sindh Assembly speaker to disqualify her for having been convicted by a court. The petitioner submitted that the top anti-corruption department of the country had filed a reference against Farooqui and her parents for allegedly investing a huge amount of money in national saving schemes, which did not commensurate with their known sources of income. “Later, we entered into a plea bargain with the NAB, which was allowed by the relevant court in 2001,” the petition added. She added that in 2016, the NAB had written to the ECP, and others calling for her disqualification under the Section 15 of the NAB Ordinance.

“Under no circumstances, the Section 15 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, which provided that a person stands disqualified for holding public officer for 21 years after having been convicted by a court, cannot be applied in her client’s case,” her counsel had argued. On the other hand, the NAB prosecutor had submitted that Sharmila could not hold any public office as she had been convicted by an accountability court. He said that Farooqi, her mother Anisa Farooqi and father Usman Farooqi stood disqualified for holding public office for 21 years as per the judgment of the accountability court issued on April 28, 2001 under Section 15 of the National Accountability Ordinance.

Published in Daily Times, November 18^th 2017.