ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court today (Thursday) dismissed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s appeals filed against the verdicts announced in the Al Azizia Steel Mills and Avenfield apartments references.
IHC judges Justice Umar Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar pronounced a nine-page judgment, reserved a day before. The verdict means that the judgment pronounced by the accountability court for the cases has been upheld.
According to the IHC judgment, Nawaz is an absconder and so there was no choice but to dismiss the pleas. The judgment observed that if Nawaz returns or is caught, an application for a renewal of appeals can be filed.
“There is nothing in the Constitution or the Rules to compel the court to decide on merits an appeal filed by an accused person who has chosen to be fugitive from justice and while remaining so decides to disobey or frustrate the orders of the court from which he seeks justice,” it added.
The judgment further noted, “Nawaz proceeded abroad and did not appear before this court despite being on bail and without any justification or basis, remained absent on a number of dates of hearing, hence this court was left with no option but to follow the procedure and declared him as fugitive from law.”
On June 23, the hearing on Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and her husband Capt (retd) Safdar Awan’s pleas was conducted by the IHC.
During the proceedings, Senator Barrister Azam Nazir Tarar argued that the right to a hearing was protected under the Constitution. “As per my experience, pleas of people, who were not present for their hearing, were rejected without arguing the case’s merits,” he added.
Tarar further contended that a window was left open for the accused so that in case they surrendered before the court, their plea could be taken up again.
To this, Justice Kayani responded that an accused’s rights were not affected even if their plea was rejected. “Pleas rejected on the basis of merit can still be moved in the apex court,” the judge maintained.
Accountability court judge Mohammad Bashir had on July 6, 2018, convicted Nawaz in the Avenfield reference and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. However, an IHC division bench comprising Chief Justice Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb suspended the sentence in the reference.
Subsequently, accountability judge Mohammad Arshad Malik had on Dec 24, 2018 convicted Sharif in the Al Azizia reference and sentenced him to seven years imprisonment, besides imposing fines of Rs1.5 billion and $25 million. He was acquitted in a joint reference — the Flagship investment reference.
