Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) challenging the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) decision to hear Sharif family’s petitions against the Avenfield verdict.

“Why does NAB file such frivolous petitions?” Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar remarked. Admonishing NAB Prosecutor Akram Qureshi for challenging the IHC’s decision, the chief justice said, “This is the [regular] mechanism. What is illegal in high court’s order?”

The anti-graft body had requested the top court to set aside the IHC’s September 10 decision to proceed with the petitions filed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Capt (r) Safdar for the suspension of sentences awarded by an accountability court in the Avenfield reference.

Imposing a Rs 20,000 fine on NAB, the chief justice noted that justice should be served to the petitioners. He directed the NAB counsel to submit the fine in the dams fund initiated by the apex court. “It is the high court’s prerogative to decide whether it wants to hear the appeals against the conviction first or the petitions seeking suspension of the sentences,” he remarked. The Supreme Court cannot interfere in this jurisdiction of the high court, he added.

In a separate development, an IHC bench hearing the Sharifs’ pleas expressed surprise over NAB challenging their September 10 order.

Justice Athar Minallah said that NAB had placed no objection to the order. However, now it has challenged the same before the apex court, he wondered.

Published in Daily Times, September 18^th 2018.