Court sends back corruption reference against Khawaja brothers to NAB.

The accountability court in Lahore on Wednesday returned the Paragon City reference against Railways MinA!ister Khawaja Saad Rafique and his brother Khawaja Salman Rafique to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). The court held that the matA!ter did not fall under its jurisdiction as per amended National AccountA!ability Ordinance (NAO), 2022.

Accountability Court Judge QaA!mar-uz-Zaman announced the verA!dict on acquittal applications, filed by the Khawaja brothers. The court had reserved its verdict on the apA!plications after hearing arguments of the parties, earlier in the day.

During the proceedings, Khawaja brothers' counsel Advocate Amjad Parvaiz advanced arguments on acA!quittal applications of his clients and submitted that the reference had been filed with a mala fide intention and on political grounds.

He submitted that his clients were neither shareholders nor sponA!sors or directors of the Paragon soA!ciety. He submitted that there was no chance of proving their guilt in the matter. He submitted that the court had recorded the statements of a number of prosecution witnessA!es but so far, no witness gave an adA!verse statement against his clients.

He submitted that after the new amendment, the case did not fall within the jurisdiction of the NAB and the accountability court since the amount involved in the reference was less than Rs 500 million. He subA!mitted that the society had settled its matters with a majority of the afA!fectees whereas a total amount of Rs 58 million of eight affectees was still...