SC to hear Rasheed's plea for re-investigation of Hudaibiya Paper Mills case today

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court is likely to take up today a petition of Awami Muslim League (AML) Chairman Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed  against the national anti-graft watchdog for failing to file an appeal before the apex court for re-investigation into Hudaibiya Papers Mills case.

Sheikh Rasheed petitioned the apex court, pleading it to order the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to re-investigate the corruption case against Sharif brothers.

Speaking to media on Wednesday, the AML chief said the NAB had given an assurance before the court to reopen the graft case against the Sharif family, but it had so far failed to keep its word. If it did not reopen the case, he will sue the NAB officials, he declared

Earlier, he had submitted in the petition that the NAB chairman had assured the top court on July 21 to file the appeal within a week, and it made his statement as part of its order, but he has failed to do so in defiance of his assurance.

Of late, he said, he sent a notice to the chairman to comply with court order in this regard, but he failed to respond.

Quoting the media reports, Rasheed said, the anti-graft body had decided not to file the appeal. A Joint Investigation Team constituted by the Supreme Court to investigate the Sharif family’s offshore properties held that Hudaibiya Papers Mills case warranted further investigation and accused ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar of whitening the money and taking it out of the country.

Rasheed said the JIT produced corroborative evidences against Sharif family with regard to money laundering, which they did not deny. Nevertheless, the NAB was dragging its feet to seek court’s permission to reopen the case, he added.

He claimed that the NAB chairman and its prosecutor general were under influence of powerful elites, and requested the court to initiate contempt of court proceedings against them for disobeying the court order.

The Musharaf government had launched an investigation against PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif back in 2000 for their alleged involvement in money-laundering. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who is a close aide and relative of the Sharifs, had given a confessional statement before a magistrate, alleging that Sharif brothers used the Hudaibiya Paper Mills as cover for money laundering during the late 1990s.

Dar later retracted his statement and claimed the statement was gleaned under duress.