Reopening of Hudaibiya case to be heard by five-member bench: SC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) observed that the case pertaining to the reopening of Hudaibiya Paper Mills case would be taken up for hearing by a five-member bench of the apex court.

Awami Muslim League (AML) Chairman Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed filed a petition against the national anti-graft watchdog for failing to file an appeal before the apex court for re-investigation into the Hudaibiya Papers Mills case.Sheikh Rasheed petitioned the apex court, pleading it to order the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to re-investigate the corruption case against the Sharif brothers.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, the AML chief said NAB had given an assurance before the court to reopen the graft case against the Sharif family, but it had so far failed to keep its word. If it did not reopen the case, he would sue the NAB officials, he declared.

Earlier, he had submitted in the petition that the NAB chairman had assured the top court on July 21 of filing the appeal within a week, and it made his statement as part of its order, but he failed to do so in defiance of his assurance. Of late, he said, he sent a notice to the chairman to comply with the court order in this regard, but he failed to respond. Quoting the media reports, Rasheed said, the anti-graft body had decided not to file the appeal. A Joint Investigation Team constituted by the Supreme Court to investigate the Sharif family’s offshore properties held that the Hudaibiya Papers Mills case warranted further investigation and accused former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar of whitening the money and taking it out of the country. Rasheed said the JIT produced corroborative evidence against the Sharif family with regard to money laundering, which they did not deny. Nevertheless, NAB was dragging its feet in seeking the court’s permission to reopen the case, he added.

He claimed that the NAB chairman and its prosecutor general were under the influence of powerful elite, and requested the court to initiate contempt of court proceedings against them for disobeying the court orders.

The Musharraf government had launched an investigation against PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif back in 2000 for their alleged involvement in money-laundering. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who is a close aide and relative of the Sharifs, had given a confessional statement before a magistrate, alleging that the Sharif brothers used the Hudaibiya Paper Mills as cover for money laundering during the late 1990s. Dar later retracted his statement and claimed the statement was gleaned under duress.