ISLAMABAD – A meeting of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB)’s executive board approved filing three corruption references against Sharif family members and one against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, here on Thursday.
The executive board meeting was attended by accountability watchdog’s bigwigs including chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry and decided to file the references in the accountability courts of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The meeting was originally planned to be held on Wednesday but was delayed for a day as the bureau’s prosecutor general was in Lahore.
According to highly placed sources, the graft-buster had informed Supreme Court’s Justice Ijazul Ahsan, the monitoring judge of the case, of their intent to file the references in the courts by Friday in line with the deadline set by the top court.
NAB’s Rawalpindi branch prepared references regarding the Azizia Steel Mills and the nearly dozen companies owned by the Sharif family, said sources.
The bureau’s Lahore branch prepared a reference on the Sharif family’s Avenfield apartments in London and another against Dar for owning assets beyond his known sources of income.
Reportedly, NAB has decided to avoid filing reference regarding the Hudaibia Paper Mills case as the apex court’s order regarding it is ‘unclear’.
On Tuesday, NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry rejected recommendations by the bureau’s regional chiefs in Rawalpindi and Lahore to freeze assets of Sharif family members and Dar, sources told Geo News.
Chaudhry also rejected the recommendation to add the names of Sharif, Hasan, Hussain and Dar on the Exit Control List (ECL).
After the Supreme Court announced the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister on July 28, NAB was ordered to file several references against Nawaz, his children Hussain, Hasan, and Maryam, son-in-law MNA Capt (retd) Safdar and Dar.
The accountability bureau was given six weeks, from the date of the court’s order, to file the references in the accountability courts of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
A total six-months were alloted to the accountability courts to wind up the proceedings.
