RPP case: Raja Zulqarnain’s bail plea dismissed

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) dismissed on Thursday post-arrest bail plea of an elected member of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)’s Legislative Assembly, Raja Babar Ali Zulqarnain, in the rental power project case.

A division-bench comprising Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani dismissed the bail after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB)’s Additional Deputy Prosecutor General, Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi, and the counsel for the AJK MLA, Sardar Taimoor Aslam, concluded arguments.

Zulqarnain, who is also son of the former AJK president and is currently in jail on judicial custody remand in a case pertaining to the rental power project, moved the court against the NAB saying that the bureau has already completed investigation and he should now be released on bail.

Zulqarnain was arrested on January 21 from the premises of the IHC following the dismissal of his pre-arrest bail application.

According to the anti-graft body, Zulqarnain made the contractual arrangement between the federal government and the company for electricity supply through ship-mounted power facility.

He was appointed to act as a local representative for the Karkey Karadeniz Elektrik Uretim — a Turkish company, which set up a power plant onboard a ship berthed at the Karachi port — to provide electricity to the national grid and logistical support to the visiting representatives of the company.

When the NAB launched a probe into the rental power projects on allegations of corruption and misuse of authority, Zulqarnain and 27 others were investigated, following which the anti-graft body submitted a reference in an accountability court.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd,  2016.