LAHORE, April 28: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday restrained an accountability court from holding further proceedings on the so-called Emirates Bank scam reference against Farukh Karamat and others.

The court also directed the NAB chairman to file a detailed reply on the points raised by the son of former chief of army staff Gen Jehangir Karamat (retired). Earlier, the court removed the LHC office objection that Mr Farukh had been declared an absconder and he should first surrender to the law and then approach the courts for relief.

Mr Farukh is among the accused who allegedly misappropriated Emirate Bank funds of hundreds of millions of rupees. Advocate Abid Hasan Minto submitted that a banking court had acquitted his client of the misappropriation charges. The NAB filed a reference against him on the same charges and an accountability court of Lahore declared him a proclaimed offender for not attending the proceedings.

The counsel pleaded that merely ascribing a different 'nomenclature' to an offence does not permit re-trial of a person on the same charges. He submitted that the ATC proceedings were in violation of Article 13 of the Constitution, which prohibits retrial of a person on similar charges at two different for a. -PPI