The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday summoned PML-N Quaid and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif through newspaper advertisements after arrest warrants against him were not received by his representatives in London, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
The court said if Nawaz Sharif did not appear before it 30 days after the publication of these advertisements in the newspapers he will be declared a fugitive from the law.
The court ordered that the advertisements be posted in leading English and Urdu newspapers, directing the federal government to bear the cost of the advertisements and the additional attorney general was asked to pay the fees within two days.
Earlier on Wednesday, officials posted at the Pakistani High Commission in London informed the court that a representative of Nawaz Sharif had initially agreed to receive the arrest warrants, but changed his mind minutes before their arrival to the former prime minister's Park Lane residence.
In a written reply submitted to the court, First Secretary of the High Commission Dildar Ali Abro said that Waqar Ahmed, a secretary to Nawaz Sharif’s son, called him and informed him that he will receive the warrants for the former prime minister.
Dildar Abro told the court that Waqar initially agreed to receive the warrants at Nawaz Sharif's residence in London. He then informed the High Commission of Waqar’s response, adding that the mission then allowed him to serve the warrants at the address.
“It was agreed with Waqar that he would receive the warrants on September 23 at 11am,” Abro told the court. He added that Waqar was also informed that the mission’s Consular Attache Rao Abdul Hanan would hand over the warrants.
“At 10:20am Waqar called me to apologise and declined to receive the warrants,” Abro told the court.
On the other hand, Hanan, in his statement, said that he had initially gone to the residence of the former premier on September 17 at 6:35pm to serve the warrants. He added that a domestic employee of Nawaz Sharif, Muhammad Yaqoob, had declined to receive the warrants, which is why the warrant could not be delivered to the former premier.
The Islamabad High Court had, in its last hearing, directed High Commission’s attache Rao Abdul Hanan to record a statement in the next hearing of the case via a video link. During the same hearing, the IHC had observed that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's exit from Pakistan was a "mockery of the system" after Additional Attorney General Tariq Khokhar presented a compliance report on Nawaz Sharif's arrest warrants issued by the high court.
The report was submitted to the two-member bench comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Aamer Farooq, who are hearing a petition filed by the former prime minister against his sentence in the Avenfield case.
In September, the IHC had issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Nawaz Sharif during a hearing over the former prime minister's petition requesting exemption from appearing before the court.
In the brief ruling, IHC's Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani remarked that the PML-N supremo neither underwent a surgery despite citing it as a reason behind obtaining bail to travel to the United Kingdom nor was he admitted to a hospital.
"Our bail order has expired, which has its own effects," the judge said during a hearing at the IHC over a petition to cancel Nawaz's bail in the Avenfield properties reference.