During Thursday’s hearing of the Rental Power Projects (RPPs) implementation case, the Supreme Court issued a show-cause notice for contempt of court to Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Admiral (Retd) Fasih Bokhari over the letter sent by him to President Asif Ali Zardari.
The court has summoned the bureau’s chairman to appear before it on Feb 4.
A three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, has been hearing the case pertaining to the implementation of its March 2012 ruling in the RPPs case.
During the proceedings, Justice Iftikhar had inquired NAB Prosecutor General KK Agha over the letter sent by the bureau’s chairman to President Zardari.
Earlier during the hearing, Agha had read out the letter sent by the bureau’s chairman to President Zardari.
Addressing Agha, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry inquired as to why such a letter was written and asked for the prosecutor general’s advice on the matter as a lawyer.
The letter dated Jan 27 and dispatched from the chairman’s home address in Chak Shahzad Farms, Park Road, Bokhari had directly accused members of the superior judiciary of trying to influence the outcome of the coming general elections.
Addressing his appointing authority, the president, Bokhari cast serious doubts over the role of the Supreme Court which he said “could be seen as pre-poll rigging”.
In the last lines of the letter, clearly referring to some remarks made by the chief justice about the RPPs case, Bokhari said: “For the wellbeing of our people, justice must be ensured, while protecting them from those who would callously allow ‘the heavens to fall’. Should these issues not be addressed expeditiously, I will regretfully be forced to tender my resignation.”
NAB spokesman Zafar Iqbal confirmed the contents of the letter which he said had been formally delivered to the president’s secretariat.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had directed the authorities to arrest Prime Minister Ashraf in the RPP implementation case.
The prime minister has been accused of receiving kickbacks and commission in the case as minister for water and power.
In the original case, nine RPPs firms were accused of receiving more than Rs22 billion as a mobilisation advance from the government to commission the projects but most of them did not set up their plants and a few of them installed them but with inordinate delay.
In March 2012, the Supreme Court had held the RPP contracts non-transparent and ordered that these be rescinded.