ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court summoned on Friday a complete trial record from the accountability court concerned in a corruption reference against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hamza Shehbaz.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Justice Mushir Alam, issued the order after it took up an application for the grant of bail filed by Hamza Shehbaz on April 25 last year.

Justice Yahya Afridi, a member of the bench, reminded NAB that the Supreme Court had already issued a directive for day-to-day trial and wondered when the trial against Hamza Shehbaz would be over.

Justice Afridi observed that it would not be right to take up new cases after bypassing old ones, but at the same time it would not be appropriate to keep the accused behind bars.

The bench asked the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to ensure that no discrimination was made against any accused facing corruption references.

Last year, PML-N leader had applied for bail

The apex court made these observations when Imran-ul-Haq, the bureau’s Additional Prosecutor General, and Hassan Akbar, a prosecutor, told the court that Lahore’s accountability court No 2 was seized with 46 references and the reference against Hamza Shehbaz was at No 44 in the list of cases.

However, they expressed the hope that the addition of 30 accountability courts would help expedite the references.

Senior counsel Azam Nazir Tarar and Amjad Pervez said their client was behind bars for the last one year and seven months.

The court postponed the proceedings for two weeks.

In his petition, Hamza had pleaded it would be in the interest of justice that hearing of the CPLA (civil petition for leave to appeal) be fixed at an early date.

Hamza was arrested on June 11, 2019, in a case related to money laundering and assets beyond means.

The application stated that the case against Hamza filed by NAB comprised a voluminous record and proposed 110 prosecution witnesses. The testimonies of only three witnesses have been recorded so far.

Since Hamza Shehbaz was behind bars for the last 19 months, his petition for grant of bail pending trial deserved an urgent hearing as it was a matter of fundamental rights to life, liberty, reputation and fair trial, the petition argued.

Hamza Shehbaz said he was facing “political victimisation by anti-democratic political groups”, adding that allegations of money laundering and possessing assets disproportionate to his known sources of income were frivolous.

The petition contended that the incarceration of the petitioner was merely a “device of harassment”.

NAB chief’s petition

Retired Justice Javed Iqbal, the NAB chairman, had approached the Supreme Court on March 20 last year with a request to annul a Feb 6 order by the Lahore High Court granting post-arrest bail to Hamza in a case accusing him of misusing a grant of Rs360 million released by the Punjab government in 2015 for launching a drainage scheme for Chiniot district.

The money was used for building a waste water course for Ramzan Sugar Mills, Chiniot, the charge sheet alleged.

The mills, according to the appeal, belonged to Hamza Shehbaz.

NAB alleged in its appeal that Hamza had failed to establish that charges made against him in the reference called for further probe. He stands fully implicated in the commission of offence by the evidence on record, the bureau contended.

But the Lahore High Court overlooked a vital aspect of the case that prima facie established the involvement of Hamza Shehbaz in the alleged offence, the appeal said.

Therefore, the appeal argued, the high court order was not tenable in the eyes of the law and liable to be dismissed on this score alone.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2021