ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Friday trashed an appeal filed by the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB), seeking reopening of an old case relating to the Hudaibya Paper Mills owned by the family of ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The judgment came as a major relief to the Sharif family particularly Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who also figured in the list of accused in the case. The reference was 17 years old.

A three-member bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel has been the appeal against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court (LHC) that had quashed the reference. All three judges handed down the unanimous decision.

The judges ruled that the appeal was time-barred, and it can’t be allowed because of the lapse of at least three years.

Earlier, the NAB lawyer attempted one more time to convince the panel to allow reopening the Hudaibya Paper Mills reference for the sake of justice. He struggled to satisfy the court on why the case should be reopened for reinvestigation by the NAB.

The bench seeking new evidence asked the NAB not to parrot the Panama judgment and rather articulate its own reasons to convince it why the reference originally filed against the Sharifs in the year 2000 should be resurrected.

“You have to satisfy the court on the reasons for the delay in filing the appeal,” Justice Alam remarked. The lawyer told the court that there are holes in the LHC decision and the appeal must be allowed.

Justice Isa said that the document on which the NAB has premised its case the confession of former finance minister Ishaq Dar has not been attached to the appeal for the reopening of the case.

“If we remove Dar’s statement, he will become an accused in the case, not a witness,” Justice Alam observed. “You have not named him as a party in the appeal.”

As the bench inquired when the charges against Sharif were framed, the lawyer responded that they could not be framed as the accused was not in Pakistan at the time. “The case went on for years and no charges were framed,” Justice Isa pointed out.

The court asked the lawyer to submit before it the orders from the last hearing of the case at the accountability court of Lahore. The lawyer said that due to the stay order issued by the LHC, the accountability court’s proceedings were halted.