A high court in Pakistan has issued non-bailable warrants for the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, convicted in Al Aziziya Steel Mills Reference.
The court also rejected the appeal submitted on Nawaz Sharif’s behalf, seeking his exemption from the court hearing.
In his remarks, the judge said, “The eight-week-long bail that was granted to the former prime minister has expired now,” and added that “as long as he (Sharif) does not surrender, the court cannot accept any exemption.”
“If we do anything like this, it will be tantamount to subverting the judicial structure of the country,” the judge said.
According to Pakistan law, if a person does not turn up to the court at the stipulated period after the issuance of his non-bailable warrants, he can be declared a proclaimed offender.
Now, Nawaz Sharif’s appeal against the Al Aziziya Steel Mills decision will be heard on September 22.
Earlier, the courts had ordered the three-time prime minister to surrender to the Pakistani court by September. However, the PML(N) leader, who is currently in London, did not come back to Pakistan. Sharif’s counsel informed the court that until his client’s treatment is not completed and he is not allowed to travel, he cannot come to Pakistan.
Curious Case of Nawaz Sharif
Power is as desirable as it is elusive, and though it allows its holder to enjoy for some time, it eventually moves on to find the new suitors. Nawaz Sharif is one of those individuals with whom power has flirted a lot.
Sharif rose to prominence during the rule of a dictator in the 1980s; he was expelled from his premiership thrice, each time by a different authority.
In 1993, he was ousted by the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan. In 1999, only two years after taking office as the prime minister, Sharif was taken over by his own hand-picked military general, Pervez Musharraf.
The two-time premier was handed life imprisonment under Musharraf’s de facto rule in 2000. However, he was pardoned in a deal that sent him to exile for ten years.
By 2007, Musharraf had lost all pretexts to rule, and his decline coincided with the return of the political leadership. Before the 2008 General Election, Nawaz returned to Pakistan after eight years of banishment and took a significant number of seats in the election.
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After grabbing 90 plus seats out of 272 openly contested constituencies, Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (N) formed a brief coalition with the majority party, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
The Third-time Premier
Then came the 2013 elections that ended the PPP’s five-year rule and which gave Nawaz Sharif the diadem for the third time. The third term was not allowed in Pakistan before 2008, and it was an understanding between the then ruling PPP and the opposition PML(N) that the third term for Nawaz Sharif was carved out through a constitutional amendment.
So, Nawaz got his third term, and he ruled with an absolute majority, but with a stubborn opposition, Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI), now in government.
From the beginning, PTI gave a tough time to the PMLN government, targeting its leadership for alleged corruption. In 2017, however, the Supreme Court of Pakistan found the incumbent prime minister Nawaz Sharif guilty of corruption and order his removal from office
