Ex-PM Sharif accused of illegally allotting land of Pak shrine

A probe initiated by the Supreme Court Tuesday accused ousted Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif of illegally allotting the land of a religious shrine in Punjab province.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was constituted by the apex court last year to probe the transfer of land of the shrine of Hazrat Baba Farid Ganj Shakar in Pakpattan in 1986 when Sharif was chief minister of Punjab.

The JIT presented its report to the bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar who expressed anger at an earlier denial by Sharif that he had not authorised any such transfer.

The report showed that 14,398 acres of shrine property was illegally allotted to one Dewan Ghulam Qutab by Sharif.

The JIT recommended the retrieval of land and criminal proceedings against Sharif, then secretary to chief minister Syed Javed Iqbal Bukhari, the legal heirs of Qutub, the then assistant administrator of Auqaf Pakpattan and revenue clerics.

The chief justice adjourned the case for two weeks while ordering the Punjab government and the former premier to file responses.

The case was started in 2015 by the then chief justice Nasirul Mulk. But the current chief justice expedited its hearing.

Sharif is already in jail serving a 10-year sentence in a corruption case over setting up a steel mill in Saudi Arabia in 2001.

Sharif was disqualified as premier by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case in July, 2017.