LAHORE: A Lahore High Court (LHC) bench, which was formed a day earlier to hear petitions filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi against the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), on Tuesday refused to proceed with applications.
The two-member bench, comprising Justice Syed Shahbaz Ali Rizvi and Asjad Javaid Ghural, instead referred the matter to the LHC Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan for fixing it before another bench.
The bench was formed after the defense objected to the original bench which featured Justice Farooq Haider, observing that the judge had represented the Chaudhrys in a number of cases before his elevation.
The Chauhdrys of Gujrat had moved the LHC last week challenging the opening of three 20-year-old inquiries against them by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
“In 2000, then chairman of the respondent bureau proceeded to authorise investigation against the petitioners on the allegations of misuse of authority, assets beyond means and wilful default under National Accountability Ordinance 1999,” the PML-Q leaders, who are also cousins, said in their three identical petitions filed through their lawyer Amjad Pervez.
The petitioners said that the three investigations were recommended for closure by the investigating officers and the regional board of NAB in 2017 and 2018 when their arch-rivals, the PML-N, were in power.
However, they said, the NAB chairman approved in 2019 bifurcation of the investigations against them about allegations of assets beyond means 19 years after the investigations were authorised [in 2000].
The petitioners, whose party is a major ally of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), argued that the establishment of NAB, its credibility and partiality and its “use for political engineering” had been a matter of heated debate not only by political parties but also by human rights organisations and the intelligentsia, both at national and international level.
