RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday reserved the verdict in the bail petition of Syed Khursheed Shah, an MNA of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), in “assets beyond means” case.

The SHC reserved the verdict after both sides -– petitioner and respondents -– concluded their arguments with the court ruling that if anyone wanted to furnish more comments, he can do it in couple of days.

Earlier, Makhdoom Ali Khan, counsel for Shah, submitted that statements of only three witnesses out of 44 were recorded and pleaded that his client should be granted the bail in the light of precedents of such nature.

He held that the reference against Shah was expected to continue longer.

The NAB prosecutor told the court the matter had been sent to the headquarters after completion of inquiry into it.

“Lawmaking is not the domain of NAB, and we did whatever was possible,” the NAB prosecutor replied when the court inquired about the delay in the reference against Shah.

The prosecutor submitted that delay is being caused in the trial court on part of the accused by producing the diary of accountability court Sukkur.

He told the court that NAB was making all its efforts to pursue the reference against Shah and didn’t request the court for adjournment on any hearing.

The prosecutor accused Shah and other accused of resorting to delaying tactics as they had been admitted to the NICVD Sukkur and NAB was not allowed to enter into it.

The bench asked whether NAB told all this to the accountability court Sukkur and requested it to send the accused from the NICVD to jail.

The court also questioned about the finalization of the reference and why final reference was not submitted despite keeping the accused in jail for twenty months.

The court also inquired about the progress of NAB in the last two years and remarked that the court just wants to know about the final reference in this case.