Bulletins 1200 28th November 2017

ISLAMABAD: A bench of the Supreme Court will take up today a plea of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) seeking reopening of the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case against the Sharif family.

The bench, headed by Justice Mushir Alam and comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel, will hear the case.

The NAB has challenged the Lahore High Court’s verdict, quashing the Rs1.2 billion Hudaibya corruption reference against the ruling family.

On November 13, a bench headed by Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and comprising Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan was dissolved after Justice Khosa recused himself from the bench and referred the matter to the Chief Justice of Pakistan for constituting another bench.

Justice Khosa had observed that the appeal has been wrongly fixed before him. Since he had suggested in the April 20 judgment in the Panama Papers that the Hudaibya Paper Mills case required to be re-investigated, thus he cannot hear the appeal to this effect, he remarked.

The Sharif family seemed to be unhappy with the NAB move seeking the reopening of the case which was put to rest on the orders of the Lahore High Court.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had reacted to the NAB appeal, with Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique terming it unjustified.

The NAB through its Prosecutor General Waqas Qadeer Dar had filed the appeal, pleading the top court to grant leave to appeal to examine the legality, propriety and vires of the 2014 LHC verdict quashing the Hudaibiya Paper Mills case and set aside the impugned judgement.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Shamim Akhtar, mother of Nawaz, Shahbaz and late Abbas Sharif, Maryam Safdar, Hussain Nawaz, Hamza Shahbaz, Hudaibya Paper Mills Ltd, the federal government and others have been named as respondents in the appeal.