NICL scam: Moonis seeks immediate hearing of petition against Zafar Qureshi

He had sought a stay order from the court on its directive to reinstate Qureshi.

ISLAMABAD:

Moonis Elahi, the main accused in the multi-billion-rupee National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam, has requested the Supreme Court for an early hearing of his petition against Zafar Qureshi, the chief investigator of the case.

Moonis requested the court to fix hearing of his review petition on September 9, on grounds that the court had not yet fixed a date, which, he said, is a violation of his fundamental rights guaranteed under article 10-A of the Constitution.

In his petition, he sought a stay order from the court on its directive of reinstating Qureshi as Additional Director-General of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and reassigning him to the NICL scam case.

Moonis’ lawyer, Babar Awan, who is also the former law minister, filed the petition in the apex court on August 17.

Awan contended that the court passed the order without providing him a fair opportunity to bring on record the circumstances, as well as specific grievances against Qureshi ever since he expressed fear of being killed by Elahi. “The principle of audi alterem partem [Latin phrase meaning ‘hear the other side] has been violated in the instant case,” stated the petition.

On February 17, Qureshi made a categorical statement before the court that he has serious apprehensions about his life. He added that Chaudhary Shujaat, Chaudhary Wajahat, Pervez Elahi and Moonis Elahi would be responsible if any untoward incident takes place causing his unnatural death.

Elahi further alleged in his petition that Qureshi is ‘biased’ against him and his family on personal grounds as well as for ‘political reasons’.

Moonis pleaded that if his review petition, along with the stay order, is not heard, he will suffer ‘irreparable loss and injury to his reputation’ because of  ‘wrongful, biased, incorrect and inimical’ investigation.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 6^th, 2011.