• Yousaf Abbas, a nephew of Sharif, and others filed an application before the court.
• The applicants through their counsel Qazi Misbahaul Haq stated that the bureau, after the amendment, could not prosecute an alleged offence involving money less than Rs500 million.
• They said the amount of the alleged offence was Rs143 million in the reference in question.

LAHORE: An accountability court has been asked to discharge its proceedings against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a reference of illegal allotment of plots to Jang Group editor-in-chief Mir Shakilur Rehman under new amendments made in the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

Yousaf Abbas, a nephew of Sharif, and others filed an application before the court saying it lacked jurisdiction to proceed with the case further as per the latest amendment in Section 5 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

The applicants through their counsel Qazi Misbahaul Haq stated that the bureau, after the amendment, could not prosecute an alleged offence involving money less than Rs500 million.

They said the amount of the alleged offence was Rs143 million in the reference in question, which did not fall in the jurisdiction of the NAB. They contended that the trial court had already acquitted Shakilur Rehman and two other accused persons including former officers of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) in the reference of 34-year-old illegal land allotment.

The applicants said the court declared Sharif a proclaimed offender and also ordered auction of his properties. They pleaded that the order of the court was not sustainable after the new amendment in the law.

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They asked the court to withdraw its order and return the reference to the chairman of the NAB for further action.

The applicants had already challenged the auction of the properties supposedly owned by Sharif.

They also claimed ownership of the assets ordered to be auctioned by the court. They said the assets had been transferred to them being lawful legal heirs of the owners.

The NAB alleged that Shakilur Rehman illegally obtained exemption of 54 plots each measuring one-kanal situated in Block-H, Johar Town. It said the allotment of the land had been in connivance with then chief minister Nawaz Sharif against the exemption policy and the laws for monetary gains. It alleged the accused caused a loss of Rs143 million to national exchequer through allotment of the land in violation of exemption policy.