Judgment reserved on Shahbaz Sharif’s plea of ​​acquittal in Ashiana Iqbal reference

Lahore: The Accountability Court reserved its decision on the acquittal plea of ​​former Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and other accused in the Ashiana Iqbal Housing Society reference.

The verdict, reserved by the court, will be pronounced on November 7. Meanwhile, the Accountability Court also approved the request of Ahad Khan Cheema, Advisor to the Caretaker Prime Minister, for a one-day attendance waiver.

Accountability Court judge Malik Ali Zulqarnain heard the Ashiana Housing Society reference against former prime minister Shahbaz Sharif and other accused, in which NAB prosecutor Waris Janjua argued in the court that according to the record, the accused are unlikely to be found guilty. . I agree with the findings of the investigation report.

Former DGLDA Ahad Khan Cheema filed a one-day attendance waiver application, arguing that the Caretaker is an advisor to the Prime Minister and is in Islamabad on official duties, hence not appearing in the accountability court. can The court should approve the request for attendance.

Accused Munir Zia’s lawyer while giving arguments on the plea of ​​acquittal said that NAB’s reference is based on malice. The process of budding in Aashiana was done in a transparent manner. The court should approve the plea of ​​acquittal of the accused.

It should be noted that the court had called for arguments today on the plea of ​​acquittal of the accused. In the last hearing, former Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s lawyer Amjad Pervaiz had completed his arguments, in which he had said that the NAB cases against Shahbaz Sharif were made for political revenge and the Supreme Court also mentioned political engineering in one of its decisions. has done

Lawyer Amjad Pervaiz had said in arguments that not a single charge against Shehbaz Sharif can be proved because NAB does not have any record or evidence to prove the case. There is no material against Fawad Hasan Fawad and Ahad Cheema as well, so there is no possibility of proving the charges against the accused.

The Accountability Court has already acquitted the two main accused Nadeem Zia and Kamran Kayani in the Ashiana Iqbal reference, while in the Ashiana reference, the court had granted permanent exemption to former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The lawyers of former prime minister Shahbaz Sharif and other accused have already completed their arguments on the plea of ​​acquittal.

Among the other accused in the Ashiana Iqbal reference were Fawad Hasan Fawad, Ahad Cheema, Chief Executive of Bismillah Construction Company Shahid Shafiq, Bilal Qadwai, Imtiaz Haider, Israr Saeed and Arif Butt etc. In the Ashiana reference, the court had indicted 10 accused.

In the reference, it was alleged that 16 thousand poor citizens deposited 61 crore rupees for Ashiana Iqbal. The Punjab Land Development Company entered into a contract on 20 January 2015, while the government had to bear a loss of more than 645 million rupees due to the incompetence of the companies. The court reserved the verdict after the arguments of the accused’s lawyers were completed, which will be pronounced on November 7.