LAHORE: The Supreme Court has dismissed a petition seeking disqualification of Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar and his brother Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht over alleged mis-declaration of assets.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah heard the petition moved by Ahsan Abid at the apex court’s Lahore registry.

The petitioner through a counsel contended that he had previously approached the Lahore High Court (LHC) for disqualification of the Makhdoom brothers for concealing their assets in their nomination papers filed for the 2018 general elections. However, he said the LHC dismissed his petition.

The bench observed that the petitioner had not availed the legal remedy of filing an election petition against the respondents for their disqualification. Therefore, it dismissed the petition for not being maintainable.

The LHC, in its decision in May, had disposed of the petition against the Makhdoom brothers after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said inquiries against them would be concluded in three months. The court had dismissed the petition to the extent of the disqualification matter.

Abid had challenged the NAB chairman’s order to transfer the inquiries against the duo from Multan to Lahore and sought their disqualification on the grounds of not disclosing their assets at the time of filing nomination papers. He was also the complainant in the inquiries before the bureau.

The petitioner said he filed the complaint with NAB Multan in 2018, but it did not proceed on it, and later transferred the same to Lahore.

RANJHA: The NAB on Wednesday informed the LHC that an inquiry of alleged illegal assets against PML-N MNA Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha was in its preliminary stage and his arrest was not required so far.

A NAB special prosecutor stated that the law did not allow arresting a petitioner at this stage. He further said that it was up to the petitioner to abstain or appear before the bureau’s investigation team at its office.

At this, a two-judge bench headed by Justice Chaudhry Shehram Sarwar disposed of the petition.

Mr Ranjha, through a counsel, had submitted to the court that the NAB had been issuing call-up notices to him in the impugned inquiry. He made several written requests to the bureau to furnish details of the complaint and allegations against him, but nothing had been provided to him.

The counsel said all assets and properties owned by the petitioner were declared in the tax documents. He alleged that the bureau initiated the inquiry against the petitioner on political consideration. He asked the court to set aside the call-up notices and the inquiry being unlawful.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2020