Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President and Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz challenged before the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday the money laundering case against them by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
The duo filed their petition through advocate Amjad Pervaiz, which stated that the PTI government had broken all previous records of political victimization in order to muffle the opposition’s voice and to deter it from criticizing the ruling party’s performance.
They made National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Director Punjab Zone-1 Dr. Muhammad Rizwan and FIA Assistant Director Syed Ali Mardan Shah as respondents in their petition.
The petitioners said that the government managed to implicate them and their family in a series of false criminal cases through misuse of law enforcement agencies. They also gave references of NAB cases registered against themselves and family members.
Shehbaz said that on October 5, 2018 when he was issued a notice in the matter of Saaf Paani Company, he was arrested in Aashiana Housing Scheme. Later, he was in NAB’s custody on physical remand when he was re-arrested in another case of Ramzan Sugar Mills/Construction of Sullage Carrier.
The PML-N president said that he was still in NAB’s custody when yet another inquiry No,1(9)HQ/2011/IW-II/NAB-L dated 23-10-2018 was launched against him and others on the allegation of assets beyond means. He submitted that he secured bail after arrest in both Aashiana and Ramzan Sugar Mills case. Later, NAB passed an order to freeze the properties of the petitioner on December 3, 2019, he said.
Shehbaz furthered that on February 21, 2019, within one week’s time of the bail, his name was placed on the Exit Control List (ECL) in connection with the ongoing inquiry regarding assets beyond means.
He also stated that he was accused of money laundering on the grounds that between 2008 to 2018, he acquired assets in his own name and/or in the names of benamidars/associates to the tune of Rs7,328 million which the prosecution said were disproportionate to known sources of income.
Shehbaz also said that in addition to himself, his wife, two daughters and both sons were also implicated and all the assets of the family both movable and immovable were the subject matter of the reference mentioned above.
He pointed out that he was arrested in the reference on September 28, 2020 whereas Hamza was arrested on June 11, 2019.
The politician submitted that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government felt it appropriate to implicate him and his family members in yet another case and this time, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was given the task.
The petitioner said that he and his son Hamza were still in the judicial lockup in connection with the assets reference when Shah registered FIR No. 39/2020 under sections 419, 420, 468, 471, 34, 109 PPC, 5(2)(3) PCA 1947 read with 3 & 4 of AMLA 2010 on the allegations of amassing wealth (pecuniary resources) disproportionate to the known sources of income and committing financial fraud, impersonation, forgery and money laundering during the period 2008 to 2018.
He contended that on November 18, 2020, apprehending arrest, the account holders mentioned in the FIR secured bail while the prosecution side sought adjournment for completion of investigation and thus the bail matters were adjourned to January 08, 2021.
He argued that on January 8, 2021, Shah made a statement before the court that the account holders were their witnesses, and they were inadvertently mentioned as accused.
Despite a lapse of many months, the investigation team did not file any investigation report and failed to collect an iota of evidence against the petitioners to suggest their nexus with the alleged occurrence. It kept on harassing and intimidating various persons including the account holders and bank officials with a view to coerce them to become witnesses in the case against the petitioners, he said. Shehbaz claimed that bank officials were harassed and coerced to make statements under section 164 Cr.P.C, the attempt of which did not bear fruit. However, it prompted the investigation team to implicate two bank officials including Asim Suri and Azhar Mehmood under section 201 PPC.
The petitioner stated that Shah, contrary to his previous statement, made another plea for arrest of the account holder, because they had refused to make a false statement against him and others.
He maintained that the prosecution submitted a challan in the court of the learned Judge Special Court (Central-I) Lahore who was pleased to return the challan to the court of learned Judge Special Court (OIB-I) Lahore in the peculiar circumstances of the case. He said that challan was submitted before the court after a lapse of 13 months from registration of the FIR while the role of the bank officials who opened and operated alleged benami accounts was still to be determined.
Shehbaz said that the proceedings against him and his son were prompted by mala fide intention, ulterior motive, and considerations extraneous to law alongside the registration of a series of cases in quick succession, and repeated arrests of the petitioners were classic examples of misuse of powers by the ruling PTI.
The fact that the enforcement agencies were used as a tool for political engineering, oppression, victimization of political opponents, subjugation and compliance, change of political loyalties, splintering and fracturing political parties or removing leaders of the opposition parties from the scene at least temporarily, had also since been noticed by the superior courts including the Supreme Court, he added.
He asked the court to quash the FIR No. 39/2020 dated 14-11-2020 registered against him and others at Police Station Anti-Corruption Circle, FIA Lahore and proceedings in pursuance thereof be declared as mala fide, illegal, without lawful authority and without jurisdiction.
He also prayed the court to restrain the respondents from taking any adverse actions against them under the impugned FIR.
A LHC division bench headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti would hear the petition of Shehbaz Sharif and Hamza Shehbaz on Thursday.
