RAWALPINDI – An accountability court here Wednesday issued notices to Sharif family members and others, telling them to respond by July 28 to a NAB plea seeking resumption of corruption cases against them.
The NAB (national accountability bureau) had approached Rawalpindi Accountability Court (AC) Number 4 to resume the corruption references pending against PML-N President Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and others.
Taking up the application filed by NAB Special Prosecutor Khurram Nawaz, AC Judge Chaudhry Abdul Haq issued notices to the respondents and summoned the case record from NAB on the next date of hearing.
Prior to that, the judge asked the prosecutor why NAB delayed the matter. Khurram replied that both the prime accused were abroad since 2001, after the references were filed. He also told that applications were filed earlier in 2008 for continuation of the cases but the accountability court dismissed those for they did not carry NAB chairman’s signatures, a requirement that could not be met because the bureau was without a chief then.
However, the prosecutor failed to satisfy the judge on the question of a stay order issued by the LHC Rawalpindi Bench. Nawaz and Shahbaz on October 18, 2011 submitted a plea in LHC Rawalpindi Bench and got a stay order from the court. Nawaz, Shahbaz, Abbas Sharif, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Haroon Pasha and Senator Ishaq Dar are co-accused in Hudabia Paper Mills case. They were accused of taking huge loan in the name of Hudabia Paper Mills and later using the amount for some other purpose. Similarly former Nawaz, Abbas, Mukhtar Hassan, Kamal Qureshi and a couple of other persons were facing law suit for securing big loans in the name of Ittefaq Foundry. In Assets Reference, the accused included Nawaz, Shahbaz, their father Mian Sharif (late), mother Shamim Akhtar and other family members.
The Sharif family, in the reference, was charged with collecting huge money and assets far beyond their known means of income by allegedly misusing their authority.