LAHORE: A Lahore High Court division bench on Thursday recused itself from pre-arrest bail petition of Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif in an assets beyond means inquiry, however, extended his bail till Aug 17.

Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry, who headed the bench, observed that he could not hear the matter as he had personal relations with Advocate Azam Nazir Tarar, senior counsel of Mr Shahbaz. Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh was the other member of the bench.

The bench referred the petition to the chief justice with a request to fix it before any other appropriate bench.

The bench extended the bail of the petitioner till the next date of hearing on Aug 17.

Mr Shahbaz, present in the court, stated that on his last appearance before the NAB officials he was told that the investigation had been completed. He said if the NAB still wanted to ask him anything they could do it right now.

Talking to the media outside the court, the leader of opposition said the PTI government had been targeting the PML-N leaders through an ‘unholy nexus’ with the NAB. He said the Supreme Court’s detailed verdict in Khwaja brothers’ bail exposed performance of the bureau and proved his party’s stance true as it had been used for political engineering.

Mr Shahbaz said it was an open secret now that the NAB had become a controversial institution. He said there will be a multi-party conference after Eidul Azha.

The LHC had initially granted the pre-arrest bail to the opposition leader on June 3.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2020