LAHORE: An anti-corruption court in Lahore is set to announce its verdict on the acquittal pleas filed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz in the Ramzan Sugar Mills case on February 6.
The development came as Anti-Corruption Court Judge Sardar Iqbal Dogar heard the case regarding the alleged misuse of authority by PM Shehbaz during his tenure as Punjab’s chief minister. He was accused of using public funds to construct a sludge carrier benefiting Ramzan Sugar Mills, owned by his sons.
In its reference filed on February 18, 2019, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) alleged that Shehbaz, as the then CM, approved a 10-kilometre sludge carrier in Chiniot district, causing a loss of Rs213 million to the national exchequer.
The case was reopened in November 2023 after the Supreme Court struck down amendments introduced by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government.
PM Shehbaz and Hamza were indicted in 2019 and later applied for a transfer of the case in September 2024 after the Supreme Court restored the original provisions of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999. Following this, the case was transferred from the accountability court to the anti-corruption court in October 2024, as NAB could not prosecute cases involving amounts less than Rs500 million.
During the hearing, the defense counsel, Amjad Pervez, argued that the complainant had admitted that the sludge carrier was not built exclusively for Ramzan Sugar Mills but was meant for the general local area.
He further contended that the complainant had informed NAB during the inquiry that he was not the original complainant and had never accused Shehbaz and Hamza of corruption in the first place.
It is worth noting that in November 2023, PM Shehbaz and 10 others were acquitted by an accountability court in Lahore in the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme case. NAB had informed the court that there was no evidence of financial corruption or misuse of authority by Shehbaz.
In the 2018 reference, the former chief minister was accused of causing a significant financial loss to the national treasury by awarding a construction contract without a competitive bidding process. However, NAB later admitted that the allegations of corruption and misuse of authority against him were not substantiated under the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999.
