ISLAMABAD - The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to investigate pending cases of Sharif family in the light of the report of the joint investigation team (JIT) on Panama Papers case, The Nation has reliably learnt.

The NAB chairman has also given go head to file “civil petition for leave to appeal (CPLA)” in Hudaibiya Paper Mills case in the Supreme Court next week, after new evidences were collected in this case from the JIT.

The JIT had also recommended the reopening of Hudaibiya Paper Mills case observing that evidence substantiates the FIA and NAB investigations, and establishes link between the investigations of the two departments.

Earlier, the NAB had given 30th June, 2017 as deadline of the completion of investigation of 179 mega corruption scams including the cases of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif, but it could not meet its target.

National anti-corruption watchdog has extended the deadline seven times so far.

The NAB Director-General (Operations), Zahir Shah, briefed the chairman and other top officials of the bureau in a meeting last Thursday, the “number of new evidences has been collected in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case by the JIT, which required further examination and evaluation.”

The DG operations said that “prima facie considerable new material has come on record, which needs to be evaluated and looked into.”

The acting prosecutor general of accountability had also recommended that proper course of action will be to file an appeal in the SC against the LHC judgment in the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case and the “assets case”.

Earlier, the JIT report reveals “as per information provided by [the] NAB vide letter dated June 21, 2017, 1x inquiry and 8x investigations are under process since 1999-2000 and even after lapse of about 18 years, no worthwhile progress has been made till date. These under process cases include the two most important cases pertaining to the domestic assets of Raiwand estate and offshore assets of Avenfield properties, but despite being authorised almost two decades earlier, they remained pending on one pretext or the other and no serious effort is on record to finalise these outstanding cases on merit.”

It further said that the Sharif family went into appeal in the Lahore High Court in six cases from time to time.

Out of these six cases, four were references filed by the NAB and two were challans filed by the FIA.

It also recommended: “Where the JIT found that the NAB inquiries/investigations have been considerably delayed and are still under process even after a passage of about 17-18 years. The references/challans, which have been quashed/respondents acquitted by the Lahore High Court but despite strong grounds, no appeal was preferred. The cases have been closed without proper justification.”

Talking to The Nation, a senior NAB official said NAB, if SC accepts the appeal in Hudaibiya Paper Mills case, then it has the ability to complete the investigation of this case within a period of three months.

He also raised the question on the competence of the bureau’s top bosses including the chairman who had failed to take decisions in Sharif’s pending cases so far.

The NAB official said that if six-member JIT could find new evidences against the ruling family in several cases than why the NAB could not do that and even though it had the best human and financial resources at its disposal and all accused were also present in the country.