LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has initiated the process of closing income beyond means inquiry against Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.

“The NAB Lahore has decided not to challenge the decision of the Lahore High Court that recently accepted Sanaullah’s plea seeking the closure of NAB’s assets beyond means inquiry against him in the apex court. Thus, the bureau initiated the process of closing the inquiry against him,” sources said on Tuesday.

The NAB in 2020 had upgraded the inquiry against the PML-N Punjab president over income beyond means into investigation after properties worth over Rs400 million owned by him were unearthed.

The NAB then claimed to have detected Sanaullah’s property worth over Rs400m that included a farmhouse, a house in a posh locality, several plots and shops in Lahore and Faisalabad besides having an investment in a housing society. The NAB had also accused him of accumulating properties in the name of his relatives.

Sanaullah had claimed that he neither had any fake bank account nor benami property and the NAB tried to build a case on his declared property.

Last week, a special court in Lahore acquitted him in a narcotics case filed against him during the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government’s tenure.

Sanaullah had been arrested in July 2019 by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF). It claimed to have recovered 15kg of heroin from his vehicle.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2022