High court restrains NAB from arresting Shahbaz Sharif

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday stopped the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from arresting Shahbaz Sharif on assets beyond means charges and granted him interim bail till June 17 against surety bonds of Rs500,000.

A division bench comprising Justice Muhammad Tariq Abbasi and Justice Farooq Haider passed the orders while hearing a pre-arrest bail petition filed by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president.

Sharif’s counsel Azam Nazir Tarar argued before the bench the NAB had arrested his client on October 5, 2018 in Ashiana-e-Iqbal housing case and kept him in its custody for 63 days.

He submitted that despite the physical remand, the bureau failed to prove anything against Sharif, adding the bureau had now launched investigations against his client on the charges of assets beyond means and money laundering.

The counsel said all the relevant record had been given to the bureau but it still wanted to arrest the petitioner. He pleaded for granting benefit of bail to his client.

However, NAB prosecutor Syed Faisal Bukhari opposed the bail petition, saying the bureau had issued arrest warrants for Sharif. To which, the petitioner’s counsel submitted the NAB had summoned the PML-N chief for June 2, whereas the arrest warrants were issued on May 28.

At this, the bench inquired from the NAB prosecutor that if arrest warrants were issued on May 28 then why the petitioner was summoned for June 2. The NAB prosecutor stated the bureau issued arrest warrants after it received relevant material.

Subsequently, after hearing arguments of the two parties, the bench granted interim bail to Sharif till June 17 and also sought reply from the bureau by next date of hearing.

Meanwhile, the NAB has re-summoned the PML-N president on June 9 on money laundering and assets beyond income charges. The decision was taken after the LHC granted pre-arrest bail to Shahbaz till June 17 in the same matter.

Talking to the media outside the LHC, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb said anti-people government had been imposed on the country. She claimed the government wanted to pass an anti-people budget by suppressing the voice of the Opposition.

Separately, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI) Sadaqat Ali Abbasi said the PML-N leaders should not have gathered outside the LHC to chant party slogans as it was not a political event for point scoring. “The NAB is an independent institution which holds legal powers given by PML-N and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leaders during their regimes, and it remained tradition of both the parties to level corruption allegations on each other,” he said while talking to a private news channel.