Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has recently been acquitted by an accountability court in a 37-year-old case that accused him of transferring state land as a bribe to a prominent media baron.
The ruling coincided with recent amendments to laws by the federal government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, to lift lifelong bans on politicians.
This acquittal may pave the way for the 73-year-old former prime minister to participate and lead the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in the upcoming general election later this year. Following a Supreme Court ruling in 2017, Nawaz Sharif was disqualified, and in 2018, he received a lifelong ban from holding public office as a result of the Panama Papers case.
The case in question involved the alleged illegal transfer of 54-kanal (6.75 acres) of state land to Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman, the owner of the Jang/Geo media group, during Nawaz Sharif’s tenure as the chief minister of Punjab.
Judge Rao Abdul Jabbar acquitted Nawaz Sharif in the case after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the country’s anti-graft body, informed the court that the recent amendments to its law no longer applied to the case.
Nawaz Sharif’s lawyer argued that NAB had filed the case with malicious intent and that his client had no involvement in the plot allotment.
The court had already acquitted Shakil-ur-Rehman in the same case, which proved that no offense had been committed.
The lawyer further contended that keeping the proceedings pending against other accused individuals, including a proclaimed offender, after the acquittal of the main accused served no purpose.
The judge accepted the arguments and acquitted Nawaz Sharif in the case.
According to the earlier charge sheet by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Nawaz Sharif, who held the position of chairman of Lahore Development (LDA) in 1986, was accused of misusing his authority. The charge sheet alleged that he granted undue benefits to Rehman by approving the exemption of 54 valuable plots, each measuring one kanal, in a single block located at canal bank H-Block of M A Jauhar Town in Lahore. The accusation suggested that Nawaz Sharif had used his position to provide favorable treatment to Rehman in the allocation of these plots.
NAB alleged that the accused, Nawaz Sharif, caused a loss of Rs 143 million to the national exchequer through the allotment of the land.
Currently, Nawaz Sharif, the supreme leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has been living in self-exile in the United Kingdom since November 2019.
Prior to his departure, Sharif had been serving a seven-year jail term in the Al-Azizia Mills corruption case, but he was granted bail on medical grounds by the Lahore High Court. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and former prime minister, Imran Khan, alleged that former army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa orchestrated Sharif’s release from jail and struck a deal with him.
The PML-N has stated that Sharif will return to Pakistan once the date for the general elections is announced.
The upcoming elections are scheduled for October, as the incumbent government’s tenure ends on August 13.
