Pakistan court acquits ex-PM Shehbaz Sharif, 10 others in major housing corruption case
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Pakistan’s top anti-corruption agency National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in 2018 had accused Sharif of causing damages to public funds by ordering the cancellation of a contract given to bidder Chaudhry Latif and Sons for the controversial low-cost Ashiana housing scheme.
A Pakistani court on Saturday (Nov 18) acquitted former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and ten others in a major housing corruption case.
Amongst those acquitted by the accountability court in the mega Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme corruption case were caretaker Privatisation Minister Fawad Hasan Fawad and former director general of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) Ahad Khan Cheema.
What were the allegations against Shehbaz Sharif?
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Pakistan’s top anti-corruption agency National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in 2018 had accused Sharif of causing damages to public funds by ordering the cancellation of a contract given to bidder Chaudhry Latif and Sons for the controversial low-cost Ashiana housing scheme.
The housing scheme was launched by the provincial government of Punjab back in 2010.
Instead, Sharif awarded the contract to Lahore Casa Developers, a proxy group of Paragon City Private Limited. This resulted in a loss of 193 million Pakistani rupees.
He was also accused of directing the Punjab Land Development Company (PLDC) to assign the project to LDA (Lahore Development Authority), which caused an estimated loss of 715 million Pakistani rupees and the ultimate failure of the housing project.
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The ex-Punjab chief minister was also accused of awarding a contract to Engineering Consultancy Services Punjab for 192 million Pak Rupees, while the actual cost of the services was just 35 million.
Shehbaz Sharif and company were earlier indicted in the case in 2019.
NAB issues clean chit to Shehbaz
Earlier this year, the NAB cleared Shehbaz from any wrongdoing. On Saturday (Nov 18), the court heard their acquittal pleas and accepted them.
On November 2, Judge Malik Ali Zulqarnain Awan of the accountability court reserved the verdict after concluding the final arguments presented by the counsels and the NAB prosecutors on acquittal pleas, Geo News reported.
“There is no probability of the conviction in the case,” the judge observed in his judgment.
Soon after the acquittal was announced, leaders from Shehbaz’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party rushed to congratulate the party president.
Former information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb declared it was a “false case for the sake of political vendetta.”
“False cases were made by blackmailing the NAB chairman. After making up false cases, slanders and accusations were made,” she said on social media platform X.
(With inputs from agencies)
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