Daily Times

An accountability court in Islamabad Wednesday re-issued a perpetual arrest warrant for former finance minister and PML-N senior leader Ishaq Dar in the assets beyond means case against him.

Hearing the acquittal pleas filed by the co-accused in the case, Justice Muhammad Bashir said the case proceedings will only move forward once Dar, who is in a self-imposed exile in London, was arrested. NAB prosecutor Afzal Qureshi and the lawyers of the co-accused appeared before the court. The judge said the decision on the appeal seeking acquittal will be announced following the PML-N leader’s arrest and his presence in this court. Subsequently, the court adjourned the hearing till detention of the PML-N leader, says a news report. In December 2017, an accountability court declared the former finance minister an absconder over his non-compliance with the authorities concerned in the corruption reference. In 2019, following the orders of an accountability court, then Punjab government had sought the auctioning of Dar’s property. However, the decision was challenged by his wife before an appellate court. Earlier this year, the court had withdrawn its order and the NAB was allowed to go ahead with the auction. Subsequently in February this year, NAB wrote a letter to the Lahore deputy commissioner asking them to auction the house without delay.

The four-kanal bungalow located in Lahore’s Gulberg area is estimated to have a market price of Rs250 million and NAB wants it to be auctioned under Section 88 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The three co-accused, including former president National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Saeed Ahmed, Mansoor Raza and Naeem Mehmood, had challenged the reference under the NAB Amendment Ordinance. The three co-accused had been the directors of Ishaq Dar’s Hajveri Trust.

The court had declared Ishaq Dar as an absconder on December 11, 2017 after he continuously failed to appear before the trial court due to his prolong stay in London.

In its reference against Dar, the NAB had alleged that “the accused has acquired assets and pecuniary interests/resources in his own name and/or in the name of his dependants of an approximate amount of Rs831.678 million (approx)”. The reference alleged that the assets were “disproportionate to his known sources of income for which he could not reasonably account for”.