Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui in his detailed judgment had declared the development schemes illegal and an example of “naked corruption”. PHOTO: FILE
A capital court, on Friday, decided to indict director general (DG) Pakistan Public Works Department (PWD) and four subordinates for releasing funds of billions of rupees for the former prime minister’s constituency in Gujar Khan. The government has also been directed to appoint a prosecutor in the case.
The petitioner’s counsel Advocate Nayab Hassan contended in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that PWD officials were served notices and the court had restrained them from awarding the contract to the National Logistics Cell (NLC) for building roads. He argued that despite the stay order, the officials had transferred the amount to NLC and should therefore be charge-sheeted. The court decided to charge-sheet PWD officials on April 11.
PWD DG Shah Din Sheikh, Superintendent Sohail Akhtar, XEN Atiqur Rehman, Federal Treasury Officer (FTO) Tasawar Hussain and Acting FTO Zahid Mughal are facing contempt charges for releasing Rs9.576 billion to NLC for building dual carriageways in former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf’s constituency, NA-51, in Gujar Khan.
During Friday’s proceedings, all four officials appeared before the court and their counsel Riffat Saghir claimed that the PWD DG had not transferred the amount to NLC. He claimed his clients had not received court notices.
Saghir requested the court to drop contempt proceeding against them. On the last date of hearing, the bench had rejected their unconditional apology. On March 28, the IHC had suspended the Rs9.576 billion worth of contracts awarded to NLC for expanding two roads in Ashraf’s constituency for violating the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules.
Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui in his detailed judgment had declared the development schemes illegal and an example of “naked corruption”. A contempt application was filed by a private company, Gondal Construction, which claimed that PWD had released the amount despite the court’s restraining order.
Former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf appeals
Meanwhile, Ashraf has filed an Intra Court Appeal (ICA) challenging the single-bench order. In the appeal his counsel Advocate Waseem Sajjad maintained that the former prime minister had awarded the projects to NLC in the public interest. He said that the single bench had failed to observe that the road from Mandra to Chakwal passes through NA-51 and another constituency.
In the appeal Ashraf claimed that the federal government could assign any project to any official executing agency and NLC was an efficient government organisation which had executed similar projects in the country.
He requested the court to set aside the judgment passed by the single bench on March 28.
A division bench comprising Justice Riaz Ahmed Khan and Justice Noorul Haq N Qureshi will take up the appeal on April 8.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 6th, 2013.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ