The Accountability Court in Lahore has acquitted 10 individuals, including PML-N leader and former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in the Ashiana reference case.
During the hearing of acquittal pleas for Shehbaz Sharif and the other 10 accused in the Ashiana Iqbal reference, both the Attorney General and NAB presented their reports to the court. The NAB prosecutor asserted that the Supreme Court’s decision does not impact the current case.
The Lahore Accountability Court has cleared Shahbaz Sharif, Fawad Chaudhry, Ahad Khan Cheema, Imtiaz Haider, Bilal Qadvi, Shahid Mehmood, Munir Zia, Ali Sajid, Chaudhry Muhammad Siddique, Shahid Shafiq, Nadeem Zia, Kamran Kayani, and Khalid Hussain. Notably, the court acquitted the two main accused, Nadeem Zia and Kamran Kayani, in the Ashiana Housing Society case. Other individuals implicated in the case include Fawad Hasan Fawad, Ahad Cheema, Shahid Shafiq (Chief Executive of Bismillah Construction Company), Bilal Qadwai, Imtiaz Haider, Asrar Saeed, and Arif Butt, among others.
According to the NAB reference, around 16 thousand citizens had deposited 61 crore rupees for Ashiana Iqbal. The agreement between Punjab Land Development Company was signed on 20 January 2015. Due to the alleged incompetence of the companies involved, the government purportedly incurred a loss exceeding 645 million rupees.