- Why not wait till accused are finally pronounced guilty
When the Lahore High Court accepted former Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s request for bail in the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme and Ramzan Sugar Mills cases, NAB went to the Supreme Court against the judgment. The questions raised by the apex court however led the NAB counsel to withdraw the appeal.
The comments made by the SC are unambiguous. It was unable to understand how the former Chief Minister was guilty of misusing authority, or committing or indulging in corruption, when he himself sent the matter to a committee and later to the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment when the allegations of procedural irregularities came to his notice. The court was unable to grasp what crime the former Chief Minister had committed when he asked for proposals for public-private partnership, especially when such proposals were subsequently placed before the Board of Directors of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC), as the entire project could not take off with the walking away of the successful bidder. The CJP observed that the former Punjab CM appears to be a good guy in the entire case. The court also regretted that the project, which never happened on ground, had kept the courts quite busy.
How can any subordinate court hearing Shehbaz Sharif’s appeal against the Ashiana Housing scheme judgement ignore the Supreme Court’s remarks? And if Mian Shehbaz is finally exonerated in the case, this would give rise to a number of vital questions. The NAB law might have been defective but shouldn’t the NAB chief, who is expected to know the basic requirements vis-à-vis dispensation of justice, have used his knowledge of law not to file a case of the type. Who will compensate for Sharif’s weeks-long custody? Who will be held responsible for the media trial that brought a bad name to the former Punjab CM?
The NAB claims it has “reasonable grounds for believing” that Messrs Shehbaz, Salman and Hamza were involved in “offences of corruption and corrupt practice.” On Tuesday it issued orders to freeze 23 properties owned by the three and other family members. The action by NAB taken before courts finally pronounce them guilty is likely to be called an act of vindictiveness.
