Rental power: ‘Pepco adviser forced me to bribe him’

Investor seeks quashment of fraud FIR against him; court seeks replies from the accused, Old Anarkali SHO.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court on Friday issued notices for July 18 to the Old Anarkali station house officer and a legal adviser to the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to file replies on a petition seeking quashment of FIR registered against an owner of a rental power project.

The petitioner, Habibullah Khan, had filed an FIR under Section 489-F of the Pakistan Penal Code stating that he had participated in bidding in 2008 for the establishment of rental power projects. He said that his company, M/s Young Gen Power (Ltd), was awarded a project being the lowest bidder.

He said that he was approached by the respondent, Advocate Sardar Shahid Iqbal, the Pepco legal adviser, who offered to ensure the approval of the project if the then federal secretary for Water and Power, Ismail Qureshi, who was his (Iqbal’s) brother in-law, was bribed. Khan alleged that Iqbal threatened to get the bid cancelled through Qureshi if Khan did not bribe him.

Khan said that he was forced to pay Rs9 million during 2008 and 2010. He said he also paid Rs50,000 per month to Iqbal as his personal expenses. He said work on the project started in September 2008, after the bribe was paid.

He said that Iqbal again asked the petitioner for Rs7 million.

He said he again threatened to halt the project. He said he had no option but to issue post dated cheques to the respondent.

Meanwhile, he said, the Supreme Court of Pakistan took suo motu notice against the rental power projects in 2008. He said after the project was halted, he returned the Rs1.26 billion advance paid to him by Pepco.

Khan said that when the post-dated cheques issued to the respondent were dishonoured by the bank, he registered a case against him on June 16, 2011.

However, the petitioner said, he secured a pre arrest bail from the court and filed a recovery suit against Advocate Iqbal and Qureshi.

The petitioner requested the court to order the police to quash the FIR against him.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2011.