ISLAMABAD: The National Account­ability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday raised a number of objections to the petitions filed by the Sharif family seeking suspension of the sentence awarded in the Avenfield properties reference.

Challenging the maintainability of the petitions, NAB’s special prosecutor Mohammad Akram Qureshi argued before a bench of the Islamabad High Court that since former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law retired Captain Mohammad Safdar had also filed appeals against their conviction, the court should commence hearing of appeals instead of petitions.

Most of these objections have already been raised before the same bench of the IHC comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, when it took up the petitions last month.

Accountability Judge Mohammad Bashir had on July 6 convicted the three Sharif family’s members in the Avenfield properties reference and awarded Mr Sharif 10 years, Ms Maryam seven and Mr Safdar one year imprisonment.

According to prosecutor Qureshi, the convicts have filed the appeals and petitions seeking suspension of the sentence simultaneously, adding that under the law, they could have opted for single remedy preferably pursuing the appeals in order to get relief.

Special prosecutor challenges high court’s powers of granting bail under Section 426 of criminal procedure code

When the prosecutor said the application requesting the court to take up petitions instead of appeals against the conviction was filed under an irrelevant section of law, Justice Minallah remarked that since the high court was a constitutional body, it had the power to relax such mistakes.

Mr Qureshi further objected that under Section 497(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, a convict facing lifetime imprisonment could file an appeal after completing a two-year sentence. For a 10-year imprisonment, the time limitation was one year, he said, adding that for a seven-year imprisonment, petitions seeking suspension of the sentence could only be filed after completing a six-month jail term.

The prosecutor even challenged the powers of the high court of granting bail under Section 426 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He, however, said the high court could only grant bail in hardship cases under this section of the law. He requested the court to dismiss the petitions and take up the appeals instead. The prosecutor argued that defence counsel Khawaja Haris could pursue the references in the trial court and the appeals in the high court simultaneously.

“You mean to say he [Khawaja Haris] needs to kill two birds with one stone,” remarked Justice Aurangzeb.

The bench reminded the prosecutor that the Supreme Court had set time frame for completion of the trial in the Al-Azizia and Flagship Investment references and the defence counsel had expressed his inability to argue on the appeals at length.

“We can take up the appeals if you give consent to stop the trial in the accountability court,” offered Justice Minallah, adding: “Let us be fair, we have to treat every person equ­ally”. The bench directed him to conclude ar­g­u­­ments by Monday and adjourned the hearing.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2018