Challenging Avenfield Reference verdict: IHC removes objections from Maryam’s new plea

ISLAMABAD: Objections to PMLN Vice President Maryam Nawaz’s new petition challenging the Avenfield reference verdict have been removed, Geo News reported Wednesday.

Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) registrar's office had raised two objections to Maryam’s petition right after it was filed in the high court on Tuesday. Maryam appeared before the two-member bench, comprising Aamer Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, in the IHC with her counsel, Advocate Irfan Qadir, to give arguments supporting the maintainability of her plea.

At the outset of the hearing, Justice Farooq remarked that the court is removing the registrar office objections.

He said while addressing Advocate Qadir that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has also filed a petition, seeking to conduct hearings on the petition on a daily basis and conclude it within a month.

At this, Advocate Qadir "ridiculed" NAB’s petition, referring to paragraph number 3, and requested the court to dismiss the petition while issuing the accountability watchdog a fine for filing such petition.

The court has issued notices to the parties and adjourned the hearing of the new and main petition till October 13. Maryam filed a separate petition in the Islamabad High Court, seeking the annulment of the verdict related to the Avenfield Apartments reference on Tuesday.

Maryam maintained in her petition that the verdict was a "classic example of outright violations of law and political engineering hitherto unheard of in the history of Pakistan." She added that the "Supreme Court supervised the entire process of the investigation of the case and monitored the prosecution."

The petition moved the IHC to take notice of the "serious violations” and nullify the Avenfield reference verdict while acquitting all the convicts.

the IHC registrar imposed two objections on Maryam’s petition. The IHC registrar office maintained that Maryam made the same appeal as that in the main petition challenging the Avenfield reference verdict. Secondly, the petitioner can acquire fresh grounds only with the court’s permission