Sharifs find no point in appearing before NAB

ISLAMABAD: Deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and members of his family believe that their appearance before the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for questioning will be an exercise in futility because filing of references against them is a fait accompli as per the July 28 judgment of the Supreme Court.

They are convinced that there is no point in presenting the case before the NAB investigators when they are handicapped to form an independent opinion on the matters they will look into. The verdict has left no room for the NAB to exercise its own judgment but has ordered the anti-graft watchdog to submit the references to accountability court at all costs.

This is unambiguously clear from the court order which said that the NAB shall within six weeks from the date of this judgment prepare and file before the accountability court, Rawalpindi/Islamabad, the references, on the basis of the material collected and referred to by the JIT in its report and such other material as may be available with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and NAB having any nexus with assets mentioned or which may subsequently become available including material that may come before it pursuant to the Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) requests sent by the JIT to different jurisdictions . 

“The former prime minister acted on the advice of his lawyers, who counseled him not to present himself before the NAB, and let it file the references. They opined that appearance before the NAB would be waste of time because it would not be possible to change the mind of the investigators because they have to implement the verdict,” a source privy to these consultations told The News.

The NAB has little or nothing to do except invoking the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO), 1999, to submit the references and argue for their acceptance in the trial court. The source stated that the Sharif family has already rejected the JIT findings, which were also not taken as a gospel truth even by the Supreme Court because it did not base its decision on them and referred them to the accountability court through the NAB to adjudicate upon them.

While the apex court did not disqualify Nawaz Sharif on the basis of most important conclusions of the JIT, it did commend and appreciate the hard work and efforts made by its six members and their support and ancillary staff in preparing and filing a comprehensive and detailed report. Their tenure of service shall be safeguarded and protected and no adverse action of any nature including transfer and posting shall be taken against them without informing the monitoring judge, the decision ordered. Justice Ijazul Ahsan was later nominated for the purpose.

However, in his review petition, Nawaz Sharif questioned the appreciation and commendation of the JIT members. The source said the Sharif family will vigorously fight for its vindication in the accountability courts when the references will be filed.

He wondered as to what the NAB wants to extract from the Sharif family when it has already been handed over the JIT report to base its references on it. Additionally, he said, the accused were going to repeat what they had already told the JIT and previously to the Supreme Court during the lengthy hearings of the Panama case if they had presented themselves before the NAB investigators.

It was feared that any new statement given by the Sharif family had it appeared before the NAB would have been used against it in the trial court, a lawyer told The News. “Therefore, they have confined themselves to what they have already informed the JIT or stated in the apex court. They have nothing to add.”

The judgment further ordered that the NAB shall also include in the proceedings all other persons including Sheikh Saeed, Musa Ghani, Kashif Masood Qazi, Javaid Kiyani and Saeed Ahmed [National Bank of Pakistan president], who have any direct or indirect nexus or connection with the actions of Nawaz Sharif, Maryam, Hussain, Hassan and Senator Ishaq Dar leading to acquisition of assets and funds beyond their known sources of income. The NAB may file supplementary references if and when any other asset, which is not prima facie reasonably accounted for, is discovered.

The order directed the accountability court to proceed with and decide these references within a period of six months from the date of their filing and in case it finds any deed, document or affidavit filed by or on behalf of the respondents or any other persons to be fake, false, forged or fabricated, it shall take appropriate action against the concerned person in accordance with law.