Accountability or anti-corruption courts in Lahore and Karachi issued on Friday summons to over 84 accused for different dates following Supreme Court judgement restoring status quo ante as on October 5 2007. They include Begum Nusrat Bhutto, interior minister Rahman Malik, Pakistan People's Party secretary general Jahangir Badar and Pakistan's ambassador to Iran M.B. Abbasi.
In Lahore, three accountability courts on Friday issued notices to 32 accused, who had got cleared their cases under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), including Pakistan People's Party General Secretary Senator Jahangir Badar, former provincial minister Malik Mushtaq Awan and Begum Nusrat Bhutto. Jahangir Badar was summoned for December 23, Nusrat Bhutto for January 12, Mushtaq Awan for January 6.
An accountability court while invoking the NRO, had acquitted Begum Nusrat Bhutto, from a reference of accumulating 1.5 billion-dollar illegal assets. Badar and Awan were acquitted from NAB references on March 10, 2008 by accountability courts at Lahore invoking the presidential pardon under NRO.
Former principal secretary to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (late) chairman District Council Chaudhry Zulfiqar, ex-MNA and chairman district council Lahore Chaudhry Shaukat Ali, ex-MNA Haji Kabir and former chief secretary Punjab Javed Qureshi were also acquitted from NAB reference on same day and the courts have also summoned these politicians and bureaucrats.
The other accused who were summoned by the courts included Seth Nisar, a renowned industrialist besides three former MPAs Rana Nazir, Mian Rasheed and Mian Tariq Mehmood. In Karachi, a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Court issued summons to more than 52 accused facing cases of corruption, corrupt practices and accumulation of wealth beyond their available sources of income for different dates.
Those summoned by the accountability court include Federal Interior Minister Rehman A. Malik, Sindh Minister for Local Government Agha Siraj Durani, Principal Secretary to the President Salman Farooqi, Pakistan ambassador to Iran and a former banker M.B. Abbasi and former Sindh Minister Imtiaz Sheikh. Mir Muhammad Sheikh, a judge of the NAB court, has summoned the interior minister on January 8.
Meanwhile, the judge of the NAB court has clarified that the court has not issue arrest warrants against the accused named in the list provided by the Sindh Chapter of the NAB. The court has only summoned the accused on different dates for further proceedings, he further clarified.
APP adds: The Accountability Court issued summons to Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik in alleged Yellow Cab scam. Earlier an Ex-Judge Khawaja Naveed Ahmed who had functioned under the PCO set-up appearing before the Court, representing the federal minister undertook that his client will appear before the court on January 8.
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