The recent elections of district bar won by PML-N : Daniyal Aziz

Lahore : Minister for Privatization Daniyal Aziz on Tuesday said that the supplementary reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau against the Sharif family lacked substance and were without any legal ground.

Addressing a press conference along with Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha here, he said the filing of a supplementary reference by NAB had no justification when the case was heading towards its logical conclusion.

According to the Panama Papers verdict, he said, supplementary references could be filed after revelation of any new asset. But the fresh reference filed by the NAB was based on the same old assumptions, he added.

The minister said it was unfair that legal documents were leaked to media before submitting them before the accountability court.

Daniyal Aziz said Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed, member of the three-judge bench in the Panama Papers case, had written in his separate note asking the NAB to remain in the limits of the verdict and otherwise it would be ‘political engineering’.

He said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was gaining popularity as evident from huge crowds at recent public gatherings in different cities, including Kot Momin and Mansehra. “The people showed their love for PML-N chief Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and his party.”

He said that in the recent elections of district bar associations across the country, around 80 percent lawyers affiliated with the PML-N won, which was another sign of the party’s popularity.

Minister of State Mohsin Shahnawaz Ranjha said the NAB team carrying out investigations against the Sharif family, was hosted by the workers of Pakistan Tahreek-i-Insaaf and Pakistan Awami Tahreek of Sheikh Rsheed during its visits abroad.

He said by filing such references against Nawaz Sharif there was a mindset that wanted to minus Nawaz Sharif from politics, however, such designs would not succeed.