Pak court docket grants exemption to PM Shehbaz, his son in corruption instances

A Pakistani court docket on Tuesday granted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son and Punjab Chief Minister Hamza Shehbaz a one-time exemption from private appearances at hearings in separate corruption instances.

Prime Minister Shehbaz was to look earlier than an accountability court docket in Lahore on Tuesday within the Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme corruption case by which he’s going through misuse of authority and inflicting a lack of thousands and thousands of rupees to the exchequer.

He requested the court docket by way of his counsel that he be granted an exemption as he was “preoccupied in Islamabad in connection with various official matters” and can’t seem earlier than the court docket.

In a separate however related software within the Ramzan Sugar Mills case, Hamza said that because the chief minister of Punjab, he was “preoccupied with various important matters of urgent nature and public welfare”.

“It is for the reason of preoccupation in the discharge of constitutional obligations that [I] am unable to appear before this honourable court today,” he mentioned, in keeping with a report within the Dawn newspaper.

The court docket accepted the purposes of each leaders and adjourned the listening to until July 16.

Shehbaz has already been granted everlasting exemption from showing within the Ramzan Sugar Mills case, by which he has been nominated as the first suspect alongside Hamza.

Shehbaz’s pre-arrest bail within the Rs 14 billion cash laundering case of the Federal Investigation Agency has already been confirmed by a particular court docket.

Ousted prime minister Imran Khan has expressed his shock at how a suspect like Shehbaz, who is needed in a multi-billion cash laundering case, is given a “huge relief” by courts.

“This man (Shehbaz) ought to be despatched to jail in a cash laundering case as a substitute of inserting him on the chair of prime minister,” Khan said at a rally recently.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed a case against Shehbaz and Hamza in 2019, alleging that they “fraudulently and dishonestly” caused a Rs 213 million loss to the national exchequer.

According to the NAB, when Shehbaz was the Punjab chief minister, he had issued a directive for the construction of a drain in Chiniot district primarily to benefit the sugar mills owned by his sons.

The anti-graft watchdog had claimed to have obtained “ample incriminating” materials and proof through the investigation, the report mentioned.

In the Ashiana Housing Scheme case, Shehbaz had been charged with misuse of authority by unlawfully assuming powers of the board of administrators of the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC), and awarding a contract to an ineligible proxy agency that resulted within the failure of the housing scheme.

The rip-off induced a loss to the general public exchequer and disadvantaged 61,000 candidates of homes, the report mentioned.

It can also be alleged that Shahbaz’s directive to entrust the mission of a housing scheme to the Lahore Development Authority from the PLDC and intervention in affairs of the corporate was in violation of the Companies Ordinance, Memorandum and Article of Association and Corporate Governance Rules 2013, it mentioned.

NAB had alleged that the previous chief minister by way of his illegal acts and misuse of authority induced a lack of Rs 660 million to the exchequer and the general mission price Rs 3.39 billion.

Shehbaz was granted bail in each instances by the Lahore High Court (LHC) in February 2019, whereas Hamza was granted bail by the LHC in February 2020.