Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: In an in-chamber hearing on Thursday, Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar again rejected a petition filed by ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif seeking to club all three corruption references filed against him in the accountability court by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Earlier, the Supreme Court’s registrar had returned Nawaz Sharif’s petition seeking to club all the three graft references against him into one or at least two on the grounds that the former prime minister had not approached the relevant forum.

Later, Nawaz Sharif filed an appeal against the rejection of his petition by the registrar. However, on November 16, 2017, the CJP in an in-chamber hearing rejected the plea and upheld the registrar’s decision.

Later, Nawaz Sharif filed another plea against CJP’s in-chamber decision of dismissing his plea against the registrar’s objections. The CJP, however, again upheld the registrar’s decision.

In his plea filed through senior lawyer Khawaja Haris Ahmad, Nawaz Sharif had contended that filing of three separate references against him on one allegation was an illegal and unconstitutional act, which was also in violation of his fundamental rights guaranteed in the constitution.

Nawaz Sharif had also pleaded the court to declare his disqualification from holding public office by a five-member larger bench of the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case as illegal and beyond the constitutional mandate.

On this particular point, the CJP questioned how Nawaz Sharif could challenge a verdict in which his review plea had already been dismissed.

The Supreme Court in its July 28, 2017, verdict in the Panama Papers case had disqualified Nawaz Sharif as prime minister and directed NAB to file corruption references against him and his family members in the accountability court within six weeks and had ordered the trial court to wrap up proceedings within six months.

Consequently, NAB had filed three corruption references against Nawaz Sharif and his family members, whose proceedings are underway in the accountability court.

The references against the Sharif family pertain to Jeddah based Al-Azizia Steel Mills, Hill Metals Establishment, Avenfield properties in London and over a dozen offshore companies allegedly owned by the Sharif family.

Published in Daily Times, January 5^th 2018.