Zardari's pleas for dismissal of references: Court to announce reserved judgment today

ISLAMABAD: The Accountability Court hearing multi-billion rupees fake bank accounts case on Thursday reserved its judgement on former president Asif Ali Zardari's petitions seeking dismissal of supplementary references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in connection with mega money laundering case, Park Lane, and Thatta Water Supply case.

The Accountability Court judge, Muhammad Azam Khan, while hearing the case, reserved its verdict after hearing arguments of both the parties, and decided to announce its reserved judgement today (Friday). At the start of the hearing, Zardari and Faryal Talpur's counsel filed application seeking one day exemption for their clients before it, which the court approved. The NAB has nominated both Zardari and Talpur in the mega money laundering reference.

Similarly, the NAB has also nominated Zardari and 19 suspects in Park Lane reference. According to the NAB, Zardari and others had allegedly embezzled funds obtained for M/S Parthenon Private Limited and M/S Park Lane Private Limited, which inflicted losses of Rs3.77 billion to the national exchequer.

The anti-graft body nominated Zardari and 13 other suspects in the supplementary reference filed in the connection with Thatta Water Supply scam.

Zardari's counsel, while arguing before the court, said that the name of Zardari was not included in the interim reference filed by the NAB in connection with Thatta water supply case.

The NAB had filed supplementary reference and included the name of Zardari in the list of nominated accused, he said.

He said that the NAB had included the name of Zardari in the supplementary reference without conducting any inquiry or investigation from him.

The NAB has illegally included name of Zardari in the supplementary reference, he said.

Naek said that chairman NAB could not include the name of an accused in the reference. The NAB has neither investigated nor summoned Zardari in this case, he said.

He said that under criminal law a completed challan could be submitted after submitting incomplete challan but as per the National Accountability Ordinance 1999, incomplete and complete could not be submitted. He requested the court to reject those references and acquit Zardari as those references had been filed against the direction of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had ordered the NAB to file reference within two months but the bureau could not file it.

The Deputy Prosecutor General NAB, while objecting to Zardari's request to reject the supplementary references, said that filing of supplementary reference was not illegal.

The NAB can file supplementary reference, he said.

He said that nowhere in the law, it was written that the NAB could not file supplementary reference.

The defence counsel cited a single law, in it, it was written that the NAB could not file supplementary reference, he said. Abbasi, while citing Section 16 of the NAB ordinance, said that under Section 16 a case could be transferred to any other place.

He also cited some judgments including Panama Papers case.

In Panama Papers case, the Supreme Court had issued very clear verdict and it was the direction of the apex court that the NAB can file a supplementary reference.

The court after hearing arguments of prosecution and defence counsel, reserved its judgement and decided to announce it today (Friday).

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020