ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday accepted for hearing a set of appeals moved by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against the Lahore High Court’s Feb 14 order of releasing former chief minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and other accused on bail in the Ashiyana housing scheme scam case.

A three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed also issued notices to the respondents — Shahbaz Sharif, former principal secretary to the prime minister Fawad Hassan Fawad, Bilal Kidwai, Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) chief executive officer Imtiaz Haider, contractor Munir Zia and others.

Senior counsel Naeem Bokhari, representing NAB, argued before the SC that the high court, while granting bail to the accused, had failed to apply judicial mind and went on to discuss the merits of the pending case during the hearing of the bail application despite the fact that neither any witness was called nor any evidence recorded by the trial court.

“Thus the high court acted contrary to the principles laid down by the Supreme Court for the grant of bail that it should be granted only when the case falls within the category of hardship or keeping in view the extraordinary circumstances, besides the bail must be temporary. Thus there were no circumstances that necessitated the grant of bail to Shahbaz Sharif,” the counsel contended.

Anti-graft watchdog challenges LHC order of granting bail to former Punjab CM, others in Ashiyana housing scheme case

Naeem Bokhari has replaced NAB’s additional prosecutor general Jahanzaib Bharwana. At the last hearing, a counsel representing one of the accused had objected to Mr Bharwana’s presence on the grounds that he was legal adviser of the PLDC which had awarded the contract for development of the Ashiyana housing scheme in December 2013.

On Thursday, Mr Bokhari argued that the high court had jumped into the conclusion by granting the bail, adding that this conclusion would prejudice the main case. He said the high court had failed to apply judicial mind to the alleged criminal intention of Shahbaz Sharif who was main architect of the entire scam by awarding the contract for the housing project in connivance with former director general of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Ahad Cheema.

Under rules, the counsel argued, the chief minister had no business to intervene in the functioning of the PLDC. He regretted that being chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif had summoned the PLDC chief executive officer (Ahad Cheema) to his residence on Oct 21, 2014 and issued nine orders. Eight of the nine orders had been issued for the purpose of strengthening the position of Ahad Cheema, he claimed.

Likewise, the counsel argued, Fawad Hassan had allegedly received Rs55 million through bank accounts of his brother and sister-in-law from another accused Kamran Kiani — the second highest bidder in the housing project. When the PLDC had its own board of directors then why the chief minister intervened in the affairs of the company, he asked.

The apex court observed that the high court found no sufficient grounds of the allegations against Shahbaz Sharif and believed that all contracts seemed to have been granted by him on merit.

The counsel said Mr Sharif had allegedly cancelled the first successful bid for the contract and later intervened in the second bidding process, adding that the first contract was cancelled in bad faith and the successful bidder had to be paid Rs6m as penalty.

Subsequently, he said, M/s Paragon Housing City (Pvt) Limited had been awarded the contract for 2,000-kanal land for Rs4 billion and by using government finances, the project was turned into a public-private partnership. This was done to benefit Paragon, he claimed.

The appeals moved by NAB contended that the high court, while granting the bail to Shahbaz Sharif and Fawad Hassan, erred by not appreciating the entire prosecution evidence, which was not warranted by the law and, therefore, the order was liable to be set aside.

The provision under Section 9(a), read with Section 14(c) of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999, entailed that an objective appreciation of the prosecution evidence had to be evaluated, the bureau said, adding that the prosecution had succeeded in establishing culpability upon Shahbaz Sharif and that no extraordinary circumstances existed then for granting him bail.

The NAB contended that Shahbaz Sharif entrusted the project to the LDA in order to award the contract for the Ashiyana housing project to M/s Paragon in connivance with his close aide accused Ahad Cheema. It alleged that Mr Sharif had time and again usurped powers of the PLDC board to ensure that the project was undertaken as per his desires and contract was awarded to his favourite bidder.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2019