NICL Scam: SC displeased over commerce secretary's absence

Commerce secretary on visit at Zardari's behest, chief justice says president 'should know consequences of...

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, displeased by Federal Commerce Secretary Zafar Mehmood’s visit to China at the behest of President Asif Ali Zardari, remarked that the president “should know the consequences of such actions,” Express News reported on Thursday.

The chief justice made this statement while hearing the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) Rs5.34 billion scam case in which the Supreme Court had earlier ordered for legal proceedings to be carried out against Federal Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim and others involved in the case.

A three-member bench of the apex court, presided by the chief justice and comprising Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Amir Hani Muslim, was hearing the suo moto case.

The main accused in the NICL scandal have categorically refused to deposit the Rs420 million liable amount owed to NICL.

Earlier, Mohsin Habib Warraich, the principal accused in the case and son of former state minister for defence production Major (retd) Habibullah Warraich, claimed the Rs420 million amount was “unjustified.”