'IHC did not adhere to SC guidelines about bail judgements while deciding Sharifs' petitions'
The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued its detailed judgement regarding the rejection of a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) appeal against the Islamabad High Court decision to suspend the prison sentences awarded to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz in the Avenfield corruption reference.
A five-member larger bench of the SC had on Monday thrown out the accountability watchdog's appeal challenging the September 19, 2018, IHC order under which Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law retired captain Mohammad Safdar were granted bail after suspension of their jail terms.
The five-page SC written judgement, penned by Chief Justice-designate Asif Saeed Khosa, while detailing the reasons for dismissal of NAB's appeal has pointed out several flaws in the IHC judgement for suspension of the Sharifs' sentences.
The verdict notes that "instead of adhering to the guidelines issued and recommendations made" by the SC in an earlier case regarding shorter formats of orders to be passed in matters of bail, the high court had issued a 41-page judgement while deciding the Sharif's bail petitions.
According to the judgement, it is a settled principle of law that while deciding an application for bail or the suspension of sentence, the merits of the case are not commented upon in detail. However, the IHC in its impugned judgement "had not only undertaken a detailed assessment of the merits of the case but had also recorded some categorical conclusions regarding the same".
Besides, the Sharifs' writ petitions for suspension of their sentences were taken up at a time when their main appeals challenging the accountability court's verdict in the Avenfield case had already been fixed for hearing. This is in contrast to judicial norms, the judgement said, because sentences are usually suspended considering that a convict "may not be kept in custody till his appeal is fixed for hearing".
On July 6, 2018, Judge Mohammad Bashir of the accountability court while deciding the Avenfield apartments reference had awarded 10-year imprisonment to Nawaz Sharif, seven years to his daughter Maryam and one year to his son-in-law Safdar.
Two months later, a division bench of the IHC had accepted their petitions seeking suspension of the sentence and set them free on Sept 19. The judgement was challenged in the Supreme Court by NAB.