ISLAMABAD, Dec 13: The Supreme Court asked the National Accountability Bureau on Tuesday to follow the Hudaibya Paper Mills corruption matter against PML-N president and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif after completing paperwork.

The directive came when a bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain called for copies of the Hudaibya corruption reference and the agreement under which the Sharif family went into exile.

The Sharif brothers had signed the agreement with a friendly country opting for exile for 10 years rather than serve jail term in Pakistan after surrendering their properties to the NAB in lieu of Rs20 million fine imposed by the Attock accountability court in the helicopter case in July 2000. They were also assured that other corruption cases against them would be dropped.

The Supreme Court had taken up a fresh appeal moved recently by NAB Prosecutor General, K. K. Agha, against a decision of the Lahore High Court in October. The court had ordered NAB to release the properties and an amount of Rs115 million attached by it after declaring that the possession by NAB was illegal.

Explaining reasons why the Hudaibya matter was brought before the Supreme Court now, Mr Agha said the NAB in the interest of justice wanted to revive the corruption matter which earlier was not possible in the absence of its chairman. Since the new chairman had been appointed, the NAB was in a position to do so, he explained.

In its decision the high court had also stayed the Hudaibya reference pending before the accountability court, Mr Agha argued. The NAB felt, he said, the federal government should have been impleaded as a necessary party in the case that was decided by the high court.

But this is only possible when the NAB machinery would come into motion by filing a proper reference, the chief justice observed.

When the court asked Mr Agha to produce the agreement as well as the reference, he said the NAB did not have them. “You can ask the government to supply a copy of the agreement to the NAB,” the chief justice suggested, adding even the National Accountability Ordinance authorises the NAB to demand such document from the government even from Nawaz Sharif.

But the court provided an opportunity to the NAB to procure the copies of the agreement and other documents by adjourning the matter for the third week of January.

The high court had, the NAB argued in its appeal before the Supreme Court, erroneously held that there was no agreement between Nawaz Sharif and the federal government while ignoring the 2007 Supreme Court judgment that clearly proved the existence of such an agreement.

A grave miscarriage of justice has been done by the high court while granting relief to the Sharif brothers when they badly failed to prove their stance, the appeal stated.

It said the high court did not apply independent conscious judicial mind while passing the verdict.

The high court judgment is a result of misreading of the material available on the file and also non-exercise of the jurisdiction.

Therefore, the high court judgment is liable to be struck down, the appeal pleaded, adding that the Sharif brothers were not entitled to the relief granted to them.