Former interior minister Rehman Malik heaved a sigh of relief on Monday when Supreme Court dropped a contempt of court case he was slapped with for transferring the then director general Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), who was investigating a Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) corruption case.
A five-member larger bench headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali was hearing Malik's appeal against the 18-03-2013 order of the apex court. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the then flamboyant chief judge of the top court, had issued a show cause notice for contempt of court to former minister of interior for transferring Tariq Khosa.
Khosa was heading an FIA team, which investigated corruption in PSM. As the team was making progress he was sent packing. However, the investigations continued without producing tangible results.
Malik twice had tendered an unconditional apology, which was turned down. In the last hearing, held three years ago, the court while dismissing apology by Malik had decided to frame contempt charges against him and nominated the then Attorney General for Pakistan as the prosecutor general in the contempt matter. However, on Monday's hearing, AGP Salman Butt did not appear and Amir Rehman represented him. On May 16, 2012 in the PSM judgement, the apex court noted that Malik interfered in the case and transferred former FIA DG Tariq Khosa in December 2009. The court had issued him another notice.
Advocate Sardar Latif Khosa, who was representing Malik, argued that his client had no power to transfer the DG FIA, adding transferring or promoting a grade 21 officer is the prerogative of the prime minister. CJP Anwar Zaheer Jamali said the court would examine issues whether the Supreme Court had appointed Tariq Khosa to investigate the PSM corruption case.
Latif Khosa replied that there was no order of the apex court in this regard. He said prior to the top court took suo moto notice on PSM corruption, Rehman Malik had formed an FIA team to probe corruption. He later constituted a joint investigation team only to enlarge the scope of investigations.