Accountability court Judge Muhammad Arshad Malik has issued detailed judgement pertaining to acquittal of former law minister Babar Awan and former law secretary Riaz Kiyani in the Nandipur Power Project case. The court on June 25 acquitted Babar and Kiyani while turned down the acquittal applications of former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, former secretary law Shumaila Mahmood and former research consultant at Ministry of Law & Justice Dr Riaz Mahmood.
According to the 12-page judgement, accused Awan was appointed as minister of law and justice on Dec 17, 2009 and remained so till April 11, 2011. As per record, no file was put before him on March 3, 2010 vide para No 100 and the then law minister recorded his observation on the same day vide para No 101 which reads as follow: "Put up the case history too. I am surprised how without observance of codal formalities, as given in rules of business, initial contract was executed by PEPCO without clearance of this ministry."
As per the judgement, the matter was put up only once before Awan and he had disposed of the same on the same very date. It is clear that the main axis point around which the entire case revolves is delay which as per prosecution was caused in the documentation of Nandipur Power Project and the same resulted in causing loss of Rs 27.3 billion to national exchequer.
Admittedly there is no allegation of getting any illegal gratification or benefit by any of the accused persons. Similarly, there is no allegation of illegal gain against any of the accused or any other person of his choice by not rendering legal opinion or not submitting summary in time to the prime minister, said the judgement, reads judgement.
It is reflecting from the record that during six months posting tenure of Justice Riaz Kiyani (retd), he dealt with the file only on two occasions. The file came to him firstly on Aug 19, 2009, whereupon he directed Shumaila Mehmood, consultant, to please discuss the issue. After about one week time, second time on August 26, 2009 she presented the file and discussed the matter with him. As such, Kiyani had dealt with the file twice consuming only one week's time, according to the judgement.
Similarly, during the tenure of accused Awan as minister, the file was presented to him only once on March 3, 2010. He dealt with the file on the same day without loss of any time, expressing his opinion given above. Hence, it cannot be said that accused Kiyani and Awan are the persons who had caused the delay in completion of documentation pertaining to Nandipur Power Project. It is significant when delay itself is not found having been caused by these accused persons then the result ensuing from delay could not be made basis to prosecute them further as accused persons to face trial.
Remaining evidence of prosecution, both oral and documentary, also goes on the show that the accused have not demanded from the prosecution witness any illegal gratification or extension of illegal gain to themselves or to any one else for non-issuance of legal opinion. As far as remaining accused persons and petitioners, namely Shumaila Mehmood, Dr Riaz Mehmood and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, are concerned, they as per record had tackled the file for some good length of time and available evidence with prosecution qua their part of performance or omission is yet to be recorded, where after, it will be seen whether they have caused any delay to the completion of the documentation process of the Nandipur Power Project.
"In the view of above, without touching the deeper merits of the case related to them and dilating much upon the intrinsic worth of proposed evidence and value of the record yet to come on file, I do herby dismiss their application under section 265-K CrPC with the observation that after recording of the evidence qua them, if they feel necessary to have recourse to law seeking relief permissible to them, they can re-agitate the so accrued grounds seeking acquittal and this order being tentative in nature qua them will never affect the merits of the main case nor their plea of defence made basis on the application. File be made part of the main reference," concluded the judgement.
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