Court reserves verdict on NAB’s plea in Toshakhana vehicles case

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court reserved its verdict on Thursday on the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) request to transfer the Toshakhana Vehicles reference — involving President Asif Ali Zardari and former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani — to the court of a special judge central.

The court will announce its decision on November 21. Accountability Court Judge Abida Sajjad, who presided over the hearing, said that the bureau had submitted its response to the court. Farooq H. Naek, counsel for Zardari, said that he and other lawyers had not yet received copies of the submission. On the judge’s order, copies were provided to the president’s lawyer. The NAB deputy director-general prosecutor also appeared in court on Thursday.

Naek urged the court to transfer the case to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), saying “Even the case challan has not been submitted to the court yet.”

However, the NAB prosecutor opposed Naek’s request, questioning how the FIA could examine the case. Naek maintained that the FIA would be the appropriate body to investigate it.

Earlier, the NAB had requested the court to transfer the Toshakhana vehicles reference back to the court of the special judge central. In its reply, the NAB had argued that following the restoration of amendments to the NAB law, the case no longer fell under its jurisdiction.

“The case concerns an alleged fraud of Rs48.2 million,” the bureau said, explaining that recent amendments specify that the NAB only handles cases involving fraud exceeding Rs500 million.”