Ishaq Dar withdraws plea seeking suspension of AC’s order

ISLAMABAD: Former finance minister and PML-N leader Ishaq Dar has withdrawn his petition from the Supreme Court (SC), seeking suspension of the accountability court’s (AC) order that declared him proclaimed offender, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

According to details, a two-member bench – comprising of Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Mazahar Ali Naqvi – disposed of the petition after Ishaq Dar withdrew his petition against declaration as proclaimed offender.

During the hearing, the former finance minister’s counsel Salman Butt told the court that Dar wanted to withdraw the petition so that he could approach the relevant forum.

The court asked why he wanted to withdraw his petition. Butt replied that he was doing so on his client’s instruction. After the withdrawal, the accountability court’s decision to declare Dar as proclaimed offender remains in effect.

Earlier in 2017, an accountability court declared former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar a proclaimed offender in a corruption reference filed against him by National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

According to the NAB reference, the accused had acquired assets and pecuniary interests/resources in his name or in the name of his dependents of an approximate amount of Rs831.678 million as per the investigation conducted so far.

The assets are disproportionate to his known sources of income for which he could not reasonably account for.