LHC extends interim bail of Hamza Shehbaz till April 25

LAHORE: A bench of Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday extended interim bails of Hamza Shehbaz in Ramzan Sugar Mills, Saaf Pani and assets beyond means cases till April 25, ARY News reported.

A two member bench of the high court headed by Justice Malik Shahzad, also issued notice to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) over a petition of Hamza Shehbaz seeking contempt proceedings against the NAB officials over raids at his residence.

The court ordered the bureau to submit its reply by April 25.

Additional Prosecutor NAB told the bench that Hamza appeared before NAB team yesterday but didn’t answer the questions and replied during the investigation that he will answer in the court.

Azam Tarar, Hamza Shehbaz’s counsel, told the court that most of the record is not available in the papers given by the accountability bureau’s officials yesterday. Moreover, some of the papers are illegible to read.

The counsel pleaded to the court to grant time for submitting reply.

Advocate Azam Nazir Tarar pleaded to the court to initiate contempt of court proceedings against director general NAB Saleem Shahzad and deputy director Chaudhry Asghar over the raid at the residence of Hamza Shehbaz.

The NAB officials conducted raid and harassed the women present at the home thus violated the court orders, which is contempt of court and proceedings to this effect be initiated against them, the counsel pleaded.

Stringent security measures were taken in the court during the case hearing. PML-N workers and unconcerned lawyers were not allowed to enter the courtroom, while special passes were issued to the lawyers appearing in the case.

Policemen forced the PML-N workers out of the high court compound, which was resulted scuffles between the party workers and policemen.