Permanent arrest warrant issued for Ishaq Dar in assets-beyond-means case

Islamabad-An Islamabad accountability court on Wednesday issued a permanent arrest warrant for former finance minister Ishaq Dar in a corruption reference.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed the reference against Dar, who has been declared an absconder in the case since he has missed sounds owing to his prolonged stay in London, professing that the former minister had acquired means beyond his given sources of income.
The court also made tentative the allocation of a ruling on pleas seeking the vindication ofco-accused — former NBP chairman Saeed Ahmed, Mansoor Raza Rizvi, and Naeem Mehmood, who were directors of Ishaq Dar’s Hajveri Moda­raba — on the PML-N leader’s arrest.
Theco-accused had filed pleas for their vindication and challenged the reference under the NAB correction constitution.
At moment’s hail, NAB prosecutor Afzal Qureshi and counsel for theco-accused appeared before the court, and Judge Muhammad Bashir presided over the proceedings.
The judge ruled that the reference’s proceedings would not progress until Dar was arrested and presented before the court and the decision on the vindication of theco-accused would be issued only after that.
The court also suspended the hail of the reference until Dar’s arrest.
On July 28, 2017, a five- member Supreme Court bench had ordered the NAB to file three references against former high minister Nawaz Sharif and one against also-finance minister Dar, on desires filed by PTI president Imran Khan, Jamaat-i-Islami’s Sirajul Haq and Awami Muslim League’s Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.
In its reference against Dar, NAB had contended that “ the indicted has acquired means and financial interests/ coffers in his own name and/ or in the name of his dependants of an approximate quantum of Rs831.678 million (approx)”.
The reference contended that the means were”disproportionate to his given sources of income for which he couldn’t nicely regard for”.
The government has also withdrawn the portfolio of finance minister from Ishaq Dar.