ISLAMABAD Dec 12 (TNS): The Supreme Court will take up today an appeal filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against a Lahore High Court (LHC) verdict, quashing Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against the Sharif family.
The three-judge bench, headed by Justice Mushir Alam and comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, will hear the case.
At the previous hearing, the judges came down hard on NAB deputy prosecutor Imran ul Haq for relying on the Panama Papers case judgment to convince them to order reopening of the case.
Haq quoted parts of Justice Asif Saeed Khosa’s note in the April 20 verdict in the Panama Papers case, in which he had observed that the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case warranted further inquiry.
Justice Isa said that it was a minority judge’s view and barred the counsel from referring to it again.
The judges directed him to come up with his own reason as to why the graft reference filed against the Sharif family should be reopened.
The court restrained TV talk shows from discussing the merits and demerits of the case and ordered Pemra to ensure implementation of its orders.
The NAB through its Prosecutor General Waqas Qadeer Dar had filed the appeal, pleading the top court to grant leave to appeal to examine the legality, propriety and vires of the 2014 LHC verdict quashing the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case and set aside the impugned judgment.
Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Shamim Akhtar, mother of Nawaz, Shehbaz and late Abbas Sharif, Maryam Safdar, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shehbaz, Hudaibiya Paper Mills Ltd, the federal government and others have been named as respondents in the appeal.
According to the Hudaibiya reference, the Sharif family had been accused of setting up Hudaibiya Paper Mills Ltd to launder illegal money.
A joint investigation team set up to investigate the Sharif family’s offshore properties had recommended in its report that the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case should be investigated afresh.
Subsequently, a Supreme Court bench hearing the Panama Papers case had asked the bureau to reopen the case.
The Musharraf government had launched an investigation against the Sharif family members back in 2000 for their alleged involvement in money-laundering.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who is a close aide and relative of the Sharifs, had given a confessional statement before a magistrate, alleging that Sharif brothers used the Hudaibiya Paper Mills as cover for money laundering during late 1990s.
Dar later retracted his statement and claimed that the statement was gleaned under duress.
