Federal Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar Monday moved Islamabad High Court's jurisdiction, seeking stay order against the proceedings of Accountability Court which indicted him for possessing assets beyond known sources of income.
An Accountability Court on Sep 27 indicted Dar for possessing assets beyond known sources of income, however, Dar pleaded not guilty to all charges, terming them baseless. Filing the petition under Article 199 of the Constitution, Khawaja Haris Ahmed made judge Accountability Court No. 1, Islamabad, and National Accountability Bureau through its chairman as respondents.
The top anti-graft watchdog had filed a reference against Dar for possessing assets beyond his known sources of income on September 08 following the July 28 verdict of the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case. The counsel for Dar submitted that his client's right to fair trial is further compromised by the fact that the copy of charge-sheet has yet not been provided to him while the reference against him is fixed for recording of evidence of the prosecution on October 04.
"As such the petitioner is likely to be seriously prejudice firstly on account that he has been deprived of right of raising any objection to framing of charge and secondly on account that statement of prosecution witnesses are going to be recorded without the petitioner having been duly apprised of the contents of the charge to which he has to answer and in the light of which he has to cross-examine the prosecution witnesses," Khawaja Haris said.
The petitioner further said that the Accountability Court failed to grant him minimum seven days to review the material provided to him on September 27. Khawaja Haris cited a Section 265-C of the Code of Criminal Procedure, saying the same provision of the law is applicable to Accountability Court proceedings under which the documents are to be provided to the accused "not later than seven days before the commencement of the trial."