The Accountability Court hearing a corruption reference against former Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and former Law Minister Zaheer-ud-Din Babar Awan with respect to delay in the Nandipur Power Project Monday reserved its judgement on Awan's acquittal plea.
Awan in October last had filed an application before Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Arshad Malik seeking acquittal in the Nandipur reference filed against him, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Muhammad Masood Chishti, former secretary law, Justice Riaz Kiyani, former secretary law, Shumaila Mahmood, former research consultant, Ministry of Law & Justice, Dr Riaz Mahmood, former senior joint secretary, Ministry of Law & Justice, and others by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on September 4, 2018.
The judge reserved the verdict on Awan's plea after Awan and the NAB prosecutor completed their arguments. While arguing before the court, Awan said that he was not the minister for law when two summaries were sent to the Law Ministry. Even the new minister did not give any approval to the summaries when he left, he said, adding that approval of summaries is the responsibility of the secretary.
He claimed that the reference filed by the NAB did not mention his name anywhere.
On this, the NAB prosecutor told the court that losses of billions of rupees caused to the national exchequer due to a person and now he says he did nothing.
The NAB will produce 27 witnesses against the accused nominated in the reference, he added.
He further told the court that Justice Rehmat Hussain Jafri (retd) Commission's report is present. "The law minister did issue one form that was required.
The entire blame is on the incompetence level of the Law Ministry during Dr Awan's tenure and its lack of coordination," he said.
The court after hearing the arguments of both the parties reserved its judgement and adjourned the hearing till February 20.
Comments
Comments are closed.