Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday filed another application for early hearing of his appeal for suspension of Accountability Court judgment in Al-Azizia Mills and be released on bail on medial grounds.
Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa on March 04 had turned down former premier's plea for fixation of the case on 06-03-2019. The chief justice had ruled that the application would be fixed on its own turn.
Khawaja Haris, who had filed application on behalf ex-PM, submitted that since the rejection of the application, the medical condition of the former prime minister has worsened therefore the instant application is being filed.
He prayed that in view of the urgency involved in this case the application may be ordered to be fixed in the next week.
The ex-PM was convicted on 24-12-2018 by the Accountability Court, Islamabad, under Section 10 of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999 and sentenced for 7 years imprisonment.
The appeal filed through Khawaja Haris submits that in view of the Medical Boards' reports it was clear that incarceration of Nawaz Sharif (petitioner) in Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore posed serious danger to his life due to lack of specialized care and facilities in jail, to cope with and manage his medical condition, coupled with the fact that he is 69 years of age and his health had actually considerably deteriorated since his confinement in jail.
Khawaja Haris contended that despite there being no challenge to the veracity of the medical boards' reports the division bench of Islamabad High Court on 25-02-2019 dismissed the writ petition for suspension of sentence and his release on bail on medical ground.
Therefore, the impugned judgment is illegal, violative of the law and in derogation of the petitioner' fundamental rights.
He submitted that the IHC has totally misconstrued the meaning and connotations of term 'exceptional circumstances' and/or 'hardship cases' as applicable to cases involving prayers for suspension of sentence on medical grounds, and thereby rendered a judgment which is manifestly in derogation of law.
The diagnosis recorded in each of the reports submitted by the Special Medical Boards of various hospitals that the petitioner is suffering from recurrent angina, ischemic heart disease, coronary artery disease, diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease stage 3, diabetic nephropathy, dyslipidemia, hyperuricemia, together with unanimous recommendations that the petitioner requires 24-hour round-the-clock monitoring in a multi-disciplinary facility for managing his ailments.
The ex-PM counsel maintained that past medical history of Nawaz Sharif, that involves 15 years of multiple hospitalisation requiring multiple coronary artery stenting procedures, coronary artery bypass surgery in 2016, another intervention in 2017 due to closing of one of the bypass grafts was not referred by the division bench of IHC in its judgment.
The former premier needed hospitalization for controlling his diabetes and his hypertension as well as for preventing damage to his heart and further deterioration of his 3rd stage chronic kidney disease, this by itself sufficient to establish that the continued incarceration of the petitioner in jail was inevitably detrimental to his life, he submitted.