The Supreme Court on Wednesday while adjourning till Thursday an application against the controversial procurement of armoured personnel carriers (APCs) for security agencies, summoned comments from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the matter.
A three-member bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali had taken up an application filed by Syed Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi who moved the court against the procurement of armoured personnel carriers (APCs). During the hearing on Wednesday, Farooq H Naik, who represented the Sindh government, submitted to the bench the details about the procurement of armoured personnel carriers (APCs). The court directed the NAB prosecutor to apprise it of the inquiry conducted by the NAB into the procurement of APCs when the matter was brought to its knowledge.
In an application, Naqvi submitted that the Sindh provincial assembly passed the Sindh Emergency Procurement Bill, 2014 on February 7, 2014 for purchase of different items required for security agencies. Subsequently, the provincial authorities made an agreement with a Serbian firm for the purchase of APCs worth Rs 8 billion on inflated rates without issuing any legal procurement tender.
Naqvi claimed that APCs being purchased have already been scrapped in Serbia and were not up to the mark but the authorities in Sindh were purchasing the same at exorbitant rates. He stated that the same vehicles could be purchased from the US at a relatively lower price of Rs 40 million each.
He claimed that several top officials were removed when they refused to become part of this controversial deal, adding the previous IGP was also transferred for the same purpose. Naqvi said the Sindh government enacted the law with malafide intention in order to purchase the APCs and other equipment, including bullet-proof jackets, helmets for the personnel of law-enforcement agencies, illegally. The court was pleaded to declare the Bill and subsequent procurements as unconstitutional and set aside the new law.
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