NAB granted time to reply on Maryam’s bail plea

LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday granted time to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for its reply on a petition filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice-President Maryam Nawaz, seeking post-arrest bail in a money laundering case.

As proceedings commenced before the bench headed by Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, NAB prosecutor sought more time to file a comprehensive reply which the court granted and adjourned the hearing till October 30.

To a court query, Maryam's lawyer told the court that she was arrested in Chaudhry Sugar Mills case only. The lawyer contended that after the amendment to the relevant law, NAB has no authority to initiate inquiries against sale/purchase of companies' shares without permission of the commission under the Securities Exchange Commission Pakistan (SECP) Act 1997. He submitted that Maryam Nawaz and her family were being politically victimised.

Petitioner Maryam Nawaz contended that her family had always been politically victimised at the hands of anti-democratic forces. She maintained that these forces had been using the conventional weapons of colonial rule, such as misusing the law through law enforcing agencies. She said that her family, regardless of the situation, had stood the test of time.

She told the court that she felt proud in submitting that despite ruthless misuse of law and so-called accountability, no case of any personal gain at the expense of the public exchequer could ever be sustained against three-time Premier Nawaz Sharif. She submitted that the NAB laws were misused for her arrest in Chaudhry Sugar Mills reference. She contended that the assumption of jurisdiction, issuance of call-up notices and proceedings in pursuance, thereof, were prompted by mala fide intention at the behest of the government for political vendetta and considerations extraneous to law. She requested the court to grant her ad-interim post-arrest bail till the decision of this instant petition. The NAB accused Ms Nawaz of committing money laundering through investments of variable heavy amounts being main shareholder in CSM. It said she was involved in money laundering with the help of some foreigners during the period of 1992-93 when her father Nawaz Sharif was prime minister.