LAHORE, Jan 7: The company judge of the Lahore High Court on Monday absolved PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif of his liability as the guarantor of a Rs407 million loan which had been acquired by a textile mills but never paid off.

Justice Sair Ali ordered that the name of Mr Shahbaz should be deleted from the array of respondents in the case, which had been pending since 1992.

Habib Bank’s Empress Road branch had moved the court against Ramzan Bakhsh Textile Mills and Shahbaz Sharif with the plea that Mr Sharif had guaranteed repayment of the loan that the mills had procured from it.

As argued by the bank, the textile mills had defaulted on the loan and Mian Shahbaz Sharif was now responsible for paying back the loan as the guarantor.

Ashtar Ausaf Ali, the counsel for Shahbaz Sharif, submitted that the guarantee was a vague document which did not put the respondent under any obligation.

The counsel argued that the document being referred to as a guarantee, did not contain the name of the beneficiary, the branch of the bank for which it was to be executed and the date of execution of the agreement between the respondent and the bank in case of a default.

He submitted that because of these facts, Mr Shahbaz was not a guarantor and should therefore be exonerated from this case.

The court, after examining the document and hearing both sides at length, observed that the guarantee referred to by the plaintiff bank did not make Mr Shahbaz responsible for paying back the loan.

This case has earlier been tried at the banking court and the banking tribunal.