ISLAMABAD:
The Supreme Court on Friday has directed the director general of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Malik Javed Iqbal to complete the investigation of the Hajj scam within a week.
A six-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry expressed displeasure over non-cooperation of FIA officers. During the course of hearing, the court rejected the investigation report submitted by the FIA and declared it unsatisfactory. The chief justice remarked that the evidence gathered was not being used to build up a case against the offenders.
Chaudhry observed that no progress had been made in the investigation of the irregularities committed in Hajj corruption case.
“The investigation process had been ruined by transfers of the officials concerned. Any official, who makes some headway in the case, is separated from the investigation,” he remarked. In this situation, he said, the only option is to hand over the investigation to the interior secretary.
The CJP said that only Rs40 million have been recovered so far out of the Rs460 million embezzled and that too with the assistance of Saudi Arabia, referring to the Saudi monarch’s offer to personally pay for the Hajj of several people who had previously been sponsored by the government as an act of charity.
The court has disposed of the matter pertaining to performing Hajj at state expense by journalists. Justice Javed Iqbal said that no instructions had been issued to harass the journalists.
The owner of Bahria Town, Malik Riaz, private secretary to the interior minister Raja Javed, former joint secretary of religious affairs Aftab and former DG Hajj Rao Shakeel and Sultan Sher have been implicated in the FIA report.
Contract officers
Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq informed the bench that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has sacked 27 contractual officers working in government departments on the directions of the apex court.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 23rd, 2011.
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