SC denies bail to PSM contractor

ISLAMABAD: “Probe the Rs22-billion corruption case in Pakistan Steel Mills, if you dare,” said Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry told Federal Investigation Agency officials before dismissing the bail application of the canteen contractor for Pakistan Steel Mills.

The three-member bench headed by Chaudhry was hearing the case regarding corruption in the Steel Mills canteen. Deputy Attorney General Agha Tariq was seeking bail for accused contractor Ateeq Ahmed Khan but got told off by the bench for elaborating too much on the irregularities worth Rs120 million committed by the contractor without providing evidence of actual embezzlement.

Even the lawyer for the FIA came in for a tongue lashing. “Your department is deceiving us by bringing up this low-level corruption matter; from what is being argued, it seems the canteen is the sole reason for the financial destruction of the Steel Mills,” Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday said irritatedly. Chaudhry joined in here. “If you have the courage, you should probe the corruption worth an estimated Rs22 billion in the Steel Mills,” he said.

“The two FIA officials standing behind you who fly in to Islamabad from Karachi every day, what is their contribution to the case in the last five months?” asked Ramday of Azam Khan. “The big guns are moving about freely and helpless people are being made scapegoats,” he said.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2010.