ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday dismissed National Accountability Bureau (NAB) appeals against PPP Co-chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari’s acquittal in 4 cases dating back to 1990s.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah announced the verdict on NAB’s plea seeking the withdrawal of its four appeals in corruption cases registered against former president Asif Ali Zardari.
In an application filed in the IHC on Wednesday, NAB’s prosecution contended that further pursuing these cases would be futile as the available evidence was based on photocopies, didn’t comply with the Qanoon-i-Shahadat (law of evidence) and sought to withdraw its appeals.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) filed these references against Mr Zardari some 25 years ago. The PPP leader was later acquitted in 2014 and 2015.
In its application, NAB stated that the available record against Zardari was not ‘sufficient’ and only photocopies of documents in references against Zardari were on record.
Presiding over today’s hearing, IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah said the accountability watchdog’s case was not based on merit. “The court told you many times that this appeal is not warranted on merit,” he added.
Justice Minallah next asked the NAB prosecutor if the institution had conducted any inquiry about the missing case record to which the latter responded that an investigation was ordered.
“Do you not know where the records of the cases went?” Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan enquired, to which Justice Minallah remarked: “They (NAB) know where the records went.”
He pointed out that NAB had said in the last hearing the record went missing somewhere between the accountability court and Supreme Court (SC).
Last month, the IHC had given the anti-graft body up till October 20 to review the cases against Zardari’s acquittal in the 25-year-old cases under the new law.
Records of four earlier references filed against Zardari in the 1990s have vanished, the NAB notified the IHC in 2020.
Along with the original case record of the SGS and Cotecna corruption references, in which the former president had also been cleared, the original record in the assets reference against him reportedly vanished from the possession of an accountability court.
On November 24, 2015, the Islamabad accountability court cleared Zardari of allegations related to the 1998 SGS-Cotecna corruption references that alleged he had used his official position to obtain financial gain.
