Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz have requested the retransfer of the Ramazan Sugar Mills reference to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) following the Supreme Court’s restoration of amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance 1999. This move came after incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan sought acquittal from a £190 million case under the NAB amendments, which he had contested.
The Supreme Court, on September 6, accepted intra-court appeals against the majority judgment that struck down the amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance. The five-member bench approved the appeals, stating that Imran failed to prove that the NAB amendments were unconstitutional.
During the recent hearing, the counsel for Shehbaz and Hamza argued that the reference against their clients is inadmissible after the Supreme Court’s verdict and that the accountability court lacks jurisdiction to proceed in the case. The judge instructed the lawyers to file an application for the transfer of the sugar mills reference to the anti-graft body, and the hearing on the application is scheduled for October 1.
Additionally, Hamza Shehbaz’s plea for exemption from personal appearance was accepted.
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The NAB amendments restricted the NAB from investigating any graft case worth less than Rs500 million, and also limited the accountability body’s powers to probe fraud cases unless the victims numbered more than 100. The amendments further modified NAB law to keep an accused in custody for a maximum of 30 days, and barred the watchdog from taking action on tax-related matters. Regulatory bodies operating in the country were removed from the NAB purview, and pending interrogations, investigations, and trials against individuals or financial matters were transferred to relevant institutions and courts.
The changes to the law included a reduction of the four-year term of the NAB chairman and the bureau’s prosecutor general to three years, as well as a three-year term for the judges of the accountability courts, with courts being bound to decide a case within one year.
