LHC Moves to Return Maryam’s Rs70 Million Bail Surety as Chaudhry Sugar Mills Case Winds Down
LAHORE — Seven years after the National Accountability Bureau arrested Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz in what it described as a money laundering probe, the Lahore High Court is now on the verge of ordering the return of the Rs70 million she deposited as bail surety in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case — a development that would mark the formal end of one of Pakistan’s most politically charged corruption inquiries.
The latest hearing, held on May 5, 2026, saw the LHC seeking a sworn affidavit from NAB confirming that the bureau had indeed withdrawn its challenge before the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC). A deputy prosecutor general for NAB informed a full bench of the LHC that the FCC office had returned the bureau’s petition on maintainability grounds, and Chief Justice Aalia Neelum instructed the NAB prosecutor to submit an affidavit to that effect by May 11.
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With that affidavit now due, the path appears clear for the court to formally resolve the surety refund matter — but getting here has required navigating a thicket of procedural disputes, legal amendments, and jurisdictional arguments that have dragged on for well over a year.
The Chaudhry Sugar Mills Inquiry and the 2019 Arrest
To understand what is happening now, it helps to go back to the beginning. NAB initiated an inquiry against Chaudhry Sugar Mills on November 14, 2018. During the investigation, Maryam Nawaz — who now serves as Punjab chief minister — was arrested on August 8, 2019, and placed on physical remand for 48 days.
A NAB team had arrested Maryam in connection with the case when she was present at Kot Lakhpat jail on a weekly visit to her incarcerated father, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The circumstances of the arrest drew immediate attention — a daughter detained while visiting her jailed father — and set the tone for a case that would become as much about political optics as legal substance.
The case pertained to alleged money laundering and income beyond means through what NAB described as “dubious” business transactions of Chaudhry Sugar Mills, of which Maryam was a major shareholder.
After spending roughly three months in custody, Maryam sought bail from the LHC. On October 31, 2019, the court granted her bail against two surety bonds of Rs10 million each and directed her to deposit Rs70 million and submit her passport with the registrar judicial. She was released on November 4, 2019.
How the Case Unraveled: NAB Amendments and Closure of the Probe
The next few years saw the case remain technically alive while stalling in terms of substantive progress. Then came a turning point. Following amendments to the NAB law, the investigation officer concluded that the case did not establish corruption or corrupt practices. Based on this finding, NAB’s Executive Board decided on April 3, 2024, to withdraw the proceedings under Section 31B(1).
NAB later closed the case after concluding the investigation and declaring it a private matter. According to NAB’s own assessment, the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case was of a private nature and did not involve any loss to the national exchequer, and no evidence of corruption or corrupt practices against Maryam surfaced during the investigation.
That was the moment Maryam’s legal team pivoted — if NAB had closed the case, the Rs70 million deposited as security nearly five years earlier had no remaining legal purpose. After the withdrawal of the proceedings, Maryam filed a miscellaneous petition in the Lahore High Court seeking the return of the Rs70 million surety amount.
The LHC’s February 2026 Order — and NAB’s Push Back
The LHC bench, led by Chief Justice Aalia Neelum, heard Maryam’s application in February 2026. A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Aalia Neelum and including Justices Muhammad Jawad Zafar and Abher Gul Khan, heard the civil miscellaneous application seeking the refund of the Rs70 million deposited as a guarantee in the case.
The court did not immediately order the money’s return. Instead, Chief Justice Neelum flagged a concern about premature release. Justice Neelum observed, “If the court orders the release of the bail surety amount today and the case is reopened tomorrow, all blame would fall on the court.” Subsequently, the bench directed NAB to approach the relevant accountability court within one month for the formal closure of the Chaudhry Sugar Mills inquiry.
That February 4 order set off a new chain of events. NAB argued that if a case is withdrawn at the inquiry stage, the accountability court has no judicial authority in the matter. The bureau further argued that where the law does not require judicial approval, such a condition cannot be introduced through a court ruling.
In a significant escalation, NAB filed a challenge before the Federal Constitutional Court, requesting the constitutional court to declare the LHC’s February 4, 2026, order null and void, maintaining that the accountability watchdog had the legal authority to withdraw proceedings before filing a reference.
The Accountability Court Steps In: March 2026
Even as NAB was challenging the LHC order at the FCC, the accountability court process moved forward on a parallel track. Judge Rana Arif announced the decision to close the Chaudhry Sugar Mills investigation on a plea filed by NAB-Lahore. Judge Arif observed that NAB’s move to close the investigation was in accordance with the law. He further noted that Maryam could also withdraw her surety bond of Rs70 million furnished against post-arrest bail granted to her in the case.
The verdict was announced by Judge Rana Arif on NAB’s petition to halt the investigation. The NAB prosecutor argued that there was no evidence of corruption against Nawaz and Maryam. Following the arguments, the court gave final approval to discontinue the probe into the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case against the top leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
That March 16, 2026, ruling was a significant development. It effectively granted Maryam the standing to reclaim her surety at the accountability court level. But she moved afresh in the LHC as well, seeking to secure the return through the high court’s mechanism — which still had pending questions about NAB’s FCC petition.
The LHC Demands Clarity on the FCC Challenge
By mid-April, the procedural situation had become tangled enough that the LHC itself called for clarification. A full bench of the LHC, headed by Chief Justice Aalia Neelum, asked NAB to clearly state the status of its petition before the Federal Constitutional Court. During the proceedings, the chief justice observed that NAB had challenged the LHC’s Feb 4 order before the FCC. In response, a NAB prosecutor told the court that the application may have been withdrawn from the FCC. The chief justice, however, directed the prosecutor to provide a definite answer on the current position of the bureau’s plea. The matter was adjourned to April 23, and subsequently to the May 5 hearing.
The Affidavit Deadline — And What Comes Next
At the May 5 hearing, the picture became somewhat clearer. A deputy prosecutor general for NAB informed the full bench that the FCC office had returned NAB’s petition raising an objection to its maintainability. Chief Justice Aalia Neelum instructed the NAB prosecutor to submit an affidavit to this effect on May 11.
In plain language: NAB’s constitutional court challenge appears to have fizzled out before it even got started, with the FCC returning the petition on jurisdictional or procedural grounds. If NAB confirms this in writing by May 11, the LHC will have a clearer runway to finally order the return of the Rs70 million to Maryam Nawaz.
Maryam’s counsel, Advocate Javed Arshad, is also pressing the matter from another angle. The chief minister filed the fresh application after the accountability court on March 16 allowed a NAB plea for the closure of the sugar mills investigation against her, with the accountability court declaring that Maryam may withdraw her surety bond of Rs70 million furnished against the post-arrest bail granted to her in the case.
Why This Case Matters Beyond the Courtroom
The Chaudhry Sugar Mills case is not just a legal dispute over Rs70 million. It is a window into broader questions about how Pakistan’s accountability architecture has been reshaped over the past several years.
The NAB amendments that triggered the closure of this case were part of a sweeping overhaul of Pakistan’s anti-corruption law that critics argued was designed to benefit the ruling political class. Supporters of those amendments countered that the original NAB law was weaponised against political opponents with little evidentiary basis — and the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case, in which the bureau’s own investigation officer ultimately found no evidence of corruption, is frequently cited as Exhibit A in that argument.
The jurisdictional tug-of-war between the LHC and NAB over whether the accountability court needed to formally sign off on a case closure also raised genuine questions about institutional boundaries. NAB argued that the Lahore High Court wrongly interpreted Section 31B(1) of the NAB amendments, and that the NAB chairman has complete legal authority to terminate any proceedings before a reference is filed. It maintained that imposing a requirement for judicial approval was equivalent to amending a law passed by parliament. Shafaqna Pakistan
That is not a frivolous argument. Courts do, on occasion, read requirements into statutes that the legislature did not explicitly write in. At the same time, courts have a legitimate interest in ensuring that accountability proceedings are closed through a transparent and judicially supervised process — particularly in a country where anti-corruption institutions have a history of selective application.
The FCC’s apparent rejection of NAB’s petition on maintainability grounds, without ruling on the merits, leaves that constitutional question unresolved for now. It may resurface in a future case.
The Human Dimension: Over Six Years and Counting
It is also worth pausing on the human element here. Maryam Nawaz was arrested in August 2019. She has served as Chief Minister of Punjab since early 2024. The Rs70 million deposited in a court registry in late 2019 has sat there, locked by the conditions of her bail, for more than six years — even as the case against her was formally dropped.
Whatever one’s political views on Maryam Nawaz or her party, the length of time it has taken to resolve the simple question of returning funds deposited as security — in a case that NAB itself declared lacked evidence of wrongdoing — points to a systemic sluggishness that affects far less powerful individuals every day. Cases involving ordinary citizens with far smaller sums and far fewer legal resources routinely languish in Pakistan’s judicial system for decades.
Conclusion
The Chaudhry Sugar Mills case appears to be in its final legal chapter. With the accountability court having formally closed the investigation in March 2026 and NAB’s constitutional challenge apparently returning to sender, the Lahore High Court is positioned to order the return of Maryam Nawaz’s Rs70 million bail surety once NAB submits the required affidavit by May 11.
The resolution of the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case will close a chapter in Pakistan’s recent political history — one that began with a dramatic arrest at a jail gate in August 2019 and ends, six-plus years later, with a bureau conceding it found nothing worth prosecuting. For observers of Pakistan’s accountability landscape, the case is less a verdict on any individual and more a study in how legal instruments can be used and then unwound as political winds shift.
