LAHORE: On Thursday, an anti-corruption court in Lahore acquitted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son, Hamza Shahbaz, in the Ramzan Sugar Mills case.
Judge Sardar Iqbal Dogar of the Anti-Corruption Court announced the verdict, which had been reserved on Monday.
The case involved allegations that, as Punjab’s chief minister, PM Shehbaz misused his authority by using public funds for the construction of a sludge carrier intended to benefit the Ramzan Sugar Mills, owned by his sons.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed a reference on February 18, 2019, accusing PM Shehbaz of orchestrating the construction of a 10-kilometre sludge carrier in the Chiniot district.
The NAB claimed that the project caused a loss of Rs213 million to the national exchequer.
In November 2023, the reference was reopened after amendments introduced by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-led coalition government were overturned. PM Shehbaz and his son Hamza were indicted in 2019, and they later sought to transfer the case in September 2024 following a Supreme Court decision to restore amendments to the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999.
The case was transferred from the accountability court to an anti-corruption court in October 2024, as the NAB could no longer prosecute cases involving amounts under Rs500 million.
During the hearings, the defense lawyer for PM Shehbaz and Hamza, Amjad Pervez, argued that the complainant had admitted that the sludge carrier was not constructed solely for the Ramzan Sugar Mills but was instead intended to serve the local area more broadly. The lawyer further pointed out that the complainant had initially confessed to not accusing PM Shehbaz and Hamza of corruption and had informed the NAB during the inquiry that he was not the original complainant.
It’s worth mentioning that in November 2023, PM Shehbaz and 10 others were acquitted by an accountability court in Lahore in the Ashiana-e-Iqbal Housing Scheme reference. The court’s decision followed the NAB’s statement that no evidence of financial corruption or misuse of authority had been found against Shehbaz, and the allegations were not supported under the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999.
