Court refuses to believe in Dar medical reports

He adds that accused is not appearing before the court deliberate

ISLAMABAD: If an order of the accountability court conducting trial of Ishaq Dar is to be believed, then an Indian doctor has allegedly provided medical reports to the former finance minister for the purpose of lingering his trial.

Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir believes that Dar was relying upon the medical reports provided by Dr Ranjit Deshpande, one of the leading heart surgeons at London Bridge Hospital, to deliberately avoid court appearance in connection with a reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

"When all medical reports are kept together it seems that the reports of Ranjit Deshpande are procured with [the] purpose to linger the case/reference," stated Judge Bashir in his order of December 11.



The judge added that Dr Christopher Baker categorically observed in his medical report that the accused is not suffering from ischaemic heart disease while Dr Ranjit Deshpande is of different opinion. The order read that Dr Deshpande conducted many tests and could not point out any such disease.

"In the above circumstances, [the] accused is not appearing before the court deliberately and avoiding execution of warrants," Judge Bashir stated.

The details surfaced from the detailed order through which the court declared Dar a proclaimed offender and decided to conduct trial in his absence.

While rejecting Defence lawyer Advocate Qausain Faisal Mufti's request to grant exemption from personal appearance and his argument that NAB has yet to verify the medical reports, the judge stated that "it is presumed that [the] reports were issued by the doctors who purportedly issued those reports".



He subsequently disposed of the applications filed for placing medical report with the request for exemption and a reply of surety giver, Ahmed Ali Quddusi. The surety was asked to explain why Dar was not appearing while simultaneously directing him to produce Dar before the court.

The order revealed that Quddusi "stood surety out of benevolence and accused is beyond his reach". The court order said that he has not shown acceptable and reasonable causes why penalty should not be paid by him, adding that he is not entitled to any leniency.

"He is directed to deposit the amount of Rs5,000,000 as he bound himself through a bond furnished u/s 91 CrPC within three days," the order said.

NAB had filed a reference against Dar for amassing assets beyond his known sources of income on September 14 and he did not appear before the court on the next first date of hearing - Sept 20 - which resulted in issuing of bailable warrants of arrest.

As per Dr Baker's medical report, the order read, Dar was advised certain tests, however, doctor was confident that the symptoms were not ischaemic in origin though suspected those might turn out to be stress related.

The court has directed the prosecution to provide details of properties of the accused and to produce witnesses as many as it can within the meaning of Section 512 of CrPC on December 14.