Bail for Maryam.

THE scales of justice are finally inclined in favour of the Sharif family. Only a few days after her father was temporarily released from jail, Maryam Nawaz has also been granted bail. She was being held by NAB in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case since August.

Well-wishers of the Sharif family had been insisting that Ms Nawaz needed to be by the side of her hospitalised father. Many might have seen the petition for Ms Nawaz's release on bail as an appeal on humanitarian grounds - in the same way that Mian Nawaz Sharif was recently given an eight-week suspension in his detention for health reasons.

However, granting her bail on Monday, the Lahore High Court made it clear that it had decided the case on its merit. The two-member bench took note of the rampant corruption in the country and stressed on the need to curb this with an 'iron hand'. But it ruled that it '... cannot keep its eyes off the legal proposition that bail cannot be withheld as a punishment ...'.

The judges observed that otherwise the court would 'transgress into the power of the trial court to return its finding upon guilt on the basis of evidence'. The Lahore High Court did consider previous judgements where relief had been extended to women petitioners who had 'neither absconded nor obstructed the process of law'.

The court, while giving relief to Ms Nawaz, asked her to submit her passport to the court officials - which was an anti-climax for those operating the rumour mills. The country had been abuzz with predictions that both Mr Sharif and Ms...