ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) was requested through a petition on Thursday to enforce Article 25 of the Constitution and issue directives to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to suspend the prosecution of all the references filed against the Sharif family in the accountability court.
The petition challenged what it called double standards of NAB in different parts of the country and prayed for enforcing Article 25 that guarantees equality of citizens and discourages discrimination.
Shahid Orakzai, who has filed the petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution, who has made NAB through its chairman and Syed Murad Ali Shah, Chief Minister Sindh, as respondents, prayed the apex court to direct the Bureau to suspend the prosecution of all the references filed in the accountability court against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members. It was further prayed that direction be also issued to NAB to take permission from the court about any investigative action under the NAB Ordinance in the said references.
The petitioner recalled that the apex court may take note that as per the final order of the court, dated 28-07-2017 in the Panama Papers case directing for filing references against the Sharif family, the accountability court in the federal capital had summoned the ex-prime minister and four members of his family on September 19, 2017 in connection with the references filed under the order of the court but none of them appeared on that date.
The petition said that on the same day, Murad Ali Shah publicly stated that NAB was winding up its work in the Sindh wherein the provincial assembly had adopted a new anti-corruption law which is not the subject of this constitutional petition.
