LAHORE – MIAN DAWOOD - In a bid to counter criticism arising from the Supreme Court verdict in the Asghar Khan case, the PML-Nawaz-led Punjab government has set afoot plans to reopen a corruption case wherein former Punjab chief minister Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo transferred Rs100 million Zakat funds to his discretionary fund and distributed the same to his relatives and friends in 1993.
According to a senior official, an unannounced committee of government officials and lawyers has been formed to look into all legal aspects of the case that had been registered in 1998 over the complaint of the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.
The official also disclosed that the body – tasked with finding ways to reopen the corruption case – drew Anti Corruption Establishment’s Punjab Director General Abid Javed and ACE’s Lahore Director Waqas Ali as its members.
As per documents available with this scribe, the ACE Lahore on September 24, 1998 registered an FIR against Manzoor Wattoo and four others – his brother-in-law Shuja Ahmed Wattoo, Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ameen and Faisal Sajjad – following the order from the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.
The documents detail that Manzoor Wattoo during his stint as the Punjab chief minister in 1993 approved a transfer of Rs100 million reserved funds of the Baitul Maal to his discretionary fund, violating a Baitul Maal Council resolution passed on September 21, 1992 banning the transfer of its budget.
Wattoo had approved the hand-written applications for granting aid money to (seemingly flood survivors) Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ameen and Faisal Sajjad, the documents add. Moreover, the investigation reports show that neither the Punjab was hit by floods nor by rains in 1993. Later, Shuja Wattoo himself made three cheques of Rs0.5 million each and got cash from the Bank of Punjab.
The findings state that Iqbal was a driver of an official of the Okara District Council, Ameen a peon at Depalpur’s tehsil office and Sajjad was Wattoo’s private employee. Later it also emerged that Iqbal and Ameen were given government jobs by the Wattoo family.
A forensic laboratory report says the applications for financial assistance had been authored and signed by Shuja Wattoo. Also, an unregistered (Honda Civic) car, gifted to Manzoor Wattoo from the plundered money, was seized.
A charge sheet by the ACE was brought before an accountability commission, and later, the case was referred to an anti-corruption court.
Manzoor and Shujja Wattoo were interned after statements from over fifteen witnesses, among them GM Sikandar – the principal secretary to Shahbaz Sharif in 1998.
Nevertheless, Wattoo brothers, Iqbal and Ameen secured interim bails, while Faisal Sajjad was pronounced as a proclaimed offender. “After the October 12, 1999 coup d’état, the proceedings of the multi-million corruption case against Wattoo’s family were stopped by the new Punjab government on orders of Pervaiz Musharraf that led to the acquittal of Manzoor and Shuja Wattoo and the three others in 2004 under Section 249-A (about non-prosecution),” said a member on the committee.
A senior ACE official, who requested anonymity, revealed that a PML-N leader had asked the ACE Lahore director and ACE Punjab director general to find out ways to drag PPP’s Punjab chief Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, who vowed to snatch the “Punjab throne” from the PML-N.
The official further said the ACE was about to recover the remaining embezzled money, when Musharraf passed orders for ‘winding up’ the case because Wattoo by that time had joined the PML-Quaid.
“The PML-N leadership has been suggested to move an appeal in the Lahore High Court against the Anti-Corruption Court’s decision along with an application of condonation,” another member on the committee, who is also a government lawyer, said, adding it was the only way to reopen the case.
Talking to The Nation, Senator Pervez Rashid, spokesman for the Punjab government, said they need not open any corruption case against Manzoor Wattoo because the PPP didn’t matter to them in the Punjab.