Chaudhrys challenge NAB chief's power to reopen 20-year-old inquiries.

Byline: Wajih Ahmad Sheikh

LAHORE -- Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, the speaker of the Punjab Assembly, approached the Lahore High Court on Wednesday, challenging three 20-year-old inquiries against them by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

'In year 2000, then chairman of the respondent bureau proceeded to authorise investigation against the petitioners on the allegations of misuse of authority, assets beyond means and wilful default under National Accountability Ordinance 1999,' the PML-Q leaders, who are also cousins, said in their three identical petitions filed through their lawyer Amjad Pervez.

The petitioners, whose party is a major ally of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, argued that the establishment of NAB, its credibility and partiality and its 'use for political engineering' had been a matter of heated debate not only by political parties but also by human rights organisations and intelligentsia, both at national and international level.

Move termed an attempt to 'contain' PML-Q leaders' role in political arena

They said that the superior courts of the country had also taken notice of the conduct of the bureau and the manner in which its officials exercised their authority in a number of cases.

The petitioners said that the three investigations were recommended for closure by the investigating officers and the regional board of NAB in 2017 and 2018 when their arch rivals were in power.

However, they said, the NAB chairman approved in 2019 bifurcation of the investigations against them about allegations of assets beyond means 19 years after the investigations...