LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz today received her passport _ just a few hours after the court directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to return her passport.
Four years ago, Maryam Nawaz was ordered by the court to surrender her passport as she was facing corruption charges at that time.
On Monday (Oct 3), the Lahore High Court (LHC) directed NAB to return the passport of Maryam Nawaz, vice-president of PML-N.
On Friday, the Islamabad High Court had acquitted Maryam Nawaz and her husband Captain (Retd) Safdar of corruption case in which Maryam was awarded seven years imprisonment while Safdar was given one-year jail. The IHC’s decision made glad the PML-N leaders.
In 2019, Maryam Nawaz was asked to surrender her passport to NAB for getting bail in a corruption reference.
The PML-N leader approached the LHC against NAB saying despite absence of any charge sheet against her, she was not able to exercise her fundamental rights for about four years.
Maryam pleaded in the court that she was in dire need to go abroad to inquire after her ailing father. Through her lawyer, she requested the court to direct the deputy registrar (judicial) to return her passport in the interest of justice.
PML-N leader surrendered her passport to the court when post-arrest bail was granted to her in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case.
A three-member bench of the LHC headed by Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti and comprised Justice Ali Baqar Najafi and Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh heard the case today.
During the last hearing, the NAB had told the court that it no longer needed Maryam Nawaz’s passport.
