LAHORE: An accountability court on Thursday once again transferred Ramzan Sugar Mills reference against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, his son former chief minister Hamza Shehbaz and others to the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) in light of amendments introduced in the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

The reference was earlier returned to the NAB in 2022 after the accountability court lost its jurisdiction to further proceed with the matter as per an amendment in section 5 of the ordinance.

A lawyer for Hamza had pleaded that the NAB, after the amendment, could not prosecute an alleged offence involving money less than Rs500 million and the offence amount in the reference against the suspects was below the minimum value. He pointed out that the NAB in its reference against his clients made a case of alleged corruption of Rs213 million.

Later, the Supreme Court had suspended the amendments leading to reopening of the reference by the NAB.

However, the apex court reversed its decision and restored the amendments in the NAB law last month.

The defence lawyer filed a fresh application seeking transfer of the proceedings to a court of competent jurisdiction.

Accountability Court JudgeZubair Shahzad Kiyani allowed the application and returned the reference to the NAB for its subsequent transfer to the ACE in light of the amendments.

Last week, the court also transferred a reference of alleged corruption against former speaker of Punjab Assembly Sibtain Khan and others to the ACE on similar grounds.

In the mills’ reference, the NAB had arrested PM Shehbaz on Oct 5, 2018, and the Lahore High Court had released him on bail on Feb 14, 2019.

The LHC in its bail granting order observed that prima facie, allegations about gratification, corrupt practice, abuse of authority, kickbacks and commission required further probe during trial as at this stage cogent evidence was not available.

The NAB alleged that Mr Shehbaz being chief minister and his son Hamza with the abetment and connivance of each other caused a loss of Rs213 million to the national exchequer by committing the offence of misuse of authority.

It said Mr Shehbaz had issued a directive for the construction of a drain in Chiniot district primarily for the use of Ramzan Sugar Mills owned by his sons – Hamza and Suleman.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2024