LAHORE: While a special court turned down the Federal Investiga­tion Agency (FIA) request to immediately cancel the pre-arrest bail of Lea­der of Opposition in National Ass­em­bly Shehbaz Sharif in a money lau­ndering case on Saturday, it issued a not­ice to hear arguments of the susp­ect on the FIA application on April 4.

The special court (Central-I) rejected the FIA special prosecutor’s request that the bail granted to Mr Shehbaz be withdrawn, arguing that the opposition leader had been misusing the concession of pre-arrest bail. The prosecutor also challenged the one-time exemption from personal appearance allowed to the suspect by the court at the last hearing.

Presiding Judge Ijaz Hassan Awan wondered how the court could revisit its own decision and observed that the prosecution could have filed an appeal before the Lahore High Court if it had any objection to the bail to the suspect.

While observing that it would not be appropriate to pass any final order on the petition of the prosecution without hearing the opposite side, the judge then issued a notice to Mr Shehbaz and directed the court office to place the FIA petition along with the suspect’s bail plea that had already been fixed for April 4.

Court grants one-time exemption from personal appearance to opposition leader, his son in NAB cases

An FIA team later got the court notice served at the official residence of the opposition leader in Islamabad.

Interestingly, federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry soon after assuming the additional portfolio of law ministry had declared that he would get the bail granted to Mr Shehbaz cancelled from the court.

The FIA had booked Leader of Opposition and his sons, Hamza and Suleman, under sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 34 and 109 (financial fraud, impersonation and forgery) of the Pakistan Penal Code and sections 5(2) and 5(3) (criminal misconduct) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and read with Section 3/4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

The challan submitted by the FIA comprises 66 pages along with seven additional volumes of 4,370-page documentary evidence.

NAB cases

Also on Saturday, an accountability court allowed one-time exemption from personal appearance to Mr Shehbaz and his son, Hamza, at the hearing of the two references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) against them and others.

A defence lawyer told the court that the opposition leader was busy in Islamabad due to the National Assembly session on no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan. The counsel further argued that Hamza, being leader of opposition in Punjab Assembly, was also not available in the current situation when the provincial assembly session had been summoned for the election of new chief minister.

Earlier, the defence counsel concluded cross-examination of two prosecution witnesses in the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme reference.

The counsel filed two separate applications on behalf of both opposition leaders. The court allowed the applications and adjourned further hearings of Ramzan Sugar Mills and the housing scheme references till April 13.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2022