LAHORE, Aug 21: An anti-terrorism court on Thursday refused to recall its orders through which it declared PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif a proclaimed offender for “absconding” the trial proceedings of a criminal case.

The court also turned down Mr Sharif’s plea to summon him to the country through the Pakistani Embassy in the US to attend the proceedings after the withdrawal of his status as a PO.

Mr Sharif’s trial along with that of former SHO Babar Ashraf Ansari had already been separated from the remaining co-accused in this case after both were declared POs on July 17, 2003.

The court also dismissed the application filed for the confiscation of the properties of the two absconders. The complainant requested the court to direct the SHO concerned to submit information regarding the properties of the two accused for their subsequent confiscation.

The court observed that an SHO didn’t have the authority to do so, and the complainant had not suggested the proper legal method for the properties’ confiscation, leaving no force and conviction in the application.

The PML-N president had challenged his PO status ordered by the court in a case in which he was accused of killing five youths in a staged police encounter in April 1998.

Defence Counsel Manzoor Ahmad Malik submitted that under Section 75(2) CrPC, the court could recall its orders without any binding. He cited legal precedents to support his contention. “Even the withdrawal of the orders declaring my client as a proclaimed offender will not affect the proceedings at all. Rather it will facilitate the accused in pleading the case on high moral and legal grounds,” he said.

It was a known fact, he argued, that the accused had been exiled to Saudi Arabia by the previous military regime in December 2000 and, later, he moved to the US for his medical treatment. “How could the court summons be served on Mr Sharif within Pakistan once he had left the country?” he asked.

According to the counsel, the report submitted by the process server (about Mr Sharif’s absconding status) was false, as the summons were not issued to him through the Pakistani Embassy in the US. He claimed that it would be against the norms of natural justice to declare him an absconder since he neither concealed himself from the operation of law nor did he flee the country to render himself an absconder as defined under Section 87 CrPC.

Mr Malik claimed that the accused had not received any notice or summon issued by the court, and the orders declaring him an absconder were liable to be recalled. He iterated his client’s consent to face the trial proceedings provided he was summoned through the Pakistani Embassy.

The complainant’s counsel, Aftab Ahmad Bajwa, denied these submissions on the grounds that in the first place the accused would have to surrender himself before the court before asking for the withdrawal of the orders. He also argued that once the orders (declaring him a PO) had been issued in a complete bona fide and legal manner, these couldn’t be recalled because it would jeopardize the entire proceedings.

Former DSP Omar Virk, SI Lala Roshan and three ASIs — Zulfiqar Ahmad, Muhammad Manzoor and Shamshad Ahmad — are the other accused in this case.

The accused police officials shot dead five youths, identified as Salahuddin, Wasim, Haider, Rauf and Wakeel, in a staged encounter at Sabzazar on April 27, 1998.

The FIR lodged on the orders of the Lahore High Court further stated that this encounter was staged on the orders of the then chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, who, according to the complainant, resorted to extrajudicial killings to control crime.