ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Wednesday filed an appeal before the Supreme Court against the Lahore High Court’s order of Jan 21, 2020, granting bail to Fawad Hassan Fawad, ex-principal secretary to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Mr Fawad was arrested by NAB on Aug 3, 2018, for allegedly amassing wealth beyond known sources of his income and constructing a plaza “The Mall Rawalpindi,” in the name of benamidars and thus getting a benefit of Rs1 billion.

The appeal, which was filed through NAB’s additional prosecutor general, urged the apex court to set aside the high court judgement highlighting that the evidence so far collected had established that Mr Fawad had acquired assets and pecuniary interest in his own name or in the name of his dependents/benamidars.

The appeal alleged that the high court had erred by accepting the bail plea of the accused by completely misreading the controversies.

The accused being a public office holder had acquired assets and pecuniary interests or resources in his own name or in the name of his benamidars to the tune of Rs1bn, which were disproportionate to the known sources of his income and which he could not reasonably account for.

According to the appeal, the high court erred while granting the post-arrest bail to the accused in the second round of litigation ignoring the fact that in the earlier round his plea for bail had been declined on merits by the high court.

It argued that the question of maintainability of the second petition on the same ground had not been addressed by the division bench while passing the Jan 21 order.

The high court had also erred in law by not appreciating the prosecution evidence in its true perspective which resulted in grave miscarriage of justice, the appeal argued, adding that the high court exercised its authority by nullifying Section 9(6) of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, and made it redundant when the accused was assigned pivotal role in the commission of offence.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court was asked to initiate contempt of court proceedings against Prime Minister Imran Khan for not implementing its verdict of Jan 17, 2019, in which the federal government was asked to appoint judges of the Supreme Appellate Court and Chief Court Gilgit-Baltistan through the judicial commission.

Jointly moved by chairman of the Standing Committee on Information Department GB Javed Hussain and Leader of the Opposition in GB Assembly retired Capt Mohammad Shafi Khan, the petition alleged that more than a year had passed since the passage of the apex court judgement but the federal government had not implemented it so far in letter and spirit.

The respondents in the contempt petition include the prime minister, the federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs Ali Amin Khan Gandapur and Law Minister Dr Farogh Naseem.

The petition alleged that in disregard of the SC judgement, Justice Irshad Hussain Shah had been appointed chief judge of the Supreme Appellate Court, while Justice Malik Haq Nawaz had been appointed chief judge of the Chief Court GB whereas Justice Wazir Shakeel had been elevated as judge of the Supreme Appellate Court.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2020