LHC grants pre-arrest bail to Sana

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Thursday granted interim pre-arrest bail to PML-N Punjab President Rana Sanaullah in a pending inquiry launched against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the allegations of accumulating assets beyond means.

A two-judge bench comprising Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh granted bail to Sana, subject to furnishing of two surety bonds of Rs 500,000 each and also sought a reply from the NAB by March 25.

Sana, a sitting MNA and former law minister, appeared before the bench along with his counsel Azam Nazir Tarar and Amjad Pervez. Tarar argued that the NAB opened the impugned inquiry with mala fide intension and on political consideration at the behest of the government. He stated the petitioner had hardly reached home after getting bail in a ‘fabricated’ drug case when he started receiving call-up notices from the NAB to appear before its combined investigation (CIT) team to explain his assets. He said the petitioner appeared before the CIT whenever he was summoned and informed the investigators that all his assets had already been scrutinized and frozen by the Anti-Narcotics Force in the drug case. He submitted that the petitioner extended his full cooperation to the CIT and asked it to furnish any nexus of corruption with his assets. However, he claimed, not an iota of evidence could be presented to the petitioner by the bureau.

Advocate Tarar said the NAB was investigating the same assets already frozen by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) following a drug case against him. He said both the NAB and the ANF were the institutions of the federal government and the NAB’s act is amounted to double jeopardy which was not permissible under the law.

He pointed out that the ANF claimed that the petitioner accumulated assets through alleged smuggling of narcotics while the NAB took a ground that the assets had been amassed through corrupt practices. Advocate Pervez argued that the NAB chairman and his officials were not competent to assume jurisdiction in view of the pendency of proceedings in the drug case before a special court. He said there was possibility that the NAB will arrest the petitioner at the behest of the government. Therefore, he said, the petitioner be granted pre-arrest bail. He denied commission of any offence that fell under the National Accountability Ordinance 1999. He requested the court to grant his client pre-arrest bail in the pending inquiry on the allegations of assets beyond means.

Later, talking to the media outside the court, Sana said the NAB had been used for political victimization of the opposition. He said there had been a tradition that the NAB summoned a person in one case and arrested him in another. He said the government was not capable to bring the country out of crises. He regretted that the whole government was stuck in the health matter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. He said midterm elections had become crucial to save the country from incompetent rulers.