NAB grills Imran, his wife Bushra in £190m scandal

IHC grants PTI chief 14-day protective bail in lawyer murder case n Court sets aside lower court order of dismissing Imran’s plea in Toshakhana case n SC rejects Imran plea for stay in lawyer murder case.

 

ISLAMABAD  -  Former prime minis­ter and PTI chief Im­ran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi appeared before the National Ac­countability Bureau (NAB) at its Rawalpin­di office on Tuesday in a £190 million set­tlement scandal - also known as the Al-Qadir Trust case.

The official sources informed that the cou­ple also brought with them some documen­tary evidence and an­swered questions to the investigators.

Earlier in the day, se­nior counsel Khawaja Haris, during the hear­ing of the settlement case, told an account­ability court that the bureau had summoned Khan and his spouse si­multaneously for the first time.

Bushra Bibi had not appeared before the bureau in response to its three notices.

Former first lady had respond­ed to all notices with the plea that she would appear before the investigation team along with her spouse.

Separately, chairman PTI Im­ran Khan also appeared before NAB team to give answers in the Toshakhana (state treasury) case. Last week, the bureau had served a second notice on Khan in Toshakhana case, asking him to appear in person before its probe team on July 4.

The notice was issued under section 19 of National Account­ability Ordinance (NAO), 1999 in an inquiry against holders of public office regarding ‘misuse of authority, criminal breach of trust and illegal gain in selling gifted state assets. ’

“Whereas, the inquiry pro­ceedings have revealed that during your tenure as former prime minister of Pakistan, you were presented 108 gifted state assets, out of the same, 58 gift­ed state assets were retained by you,” read the notice.

The notice said that Khan did not deposit the state gifts in Toshakhana for fair price as­sessment in contravention of the rules and subsequently re­tained the gifts worth millions of rupees. It further said, “More­over, you sold/misappropriated some of the gifted state assets for your personal benefit.”

NAB through the notice al­leged that Khan, being former prime minister, influenced the process of price evaluation by the government and private appraisers. The notice further asked the PTI chief to appear as accused before its combined investigation team (CIT) at the bureau’s Rawalpindi office on July 4 for recording his state­ment. It further asked him to produce a complete record of the state gifts received, as well as sold, and physically present the state gifts retained by him for their price evaluation by the experts.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Pakistan Tuesday turned down Chairman Paki­stan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Im­ran Khan’s petition seeking stay against the ongoing proceed­ings in the murder of senior lawyer Abdul Razzaq Shar.

A two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan and Justice Ayesha A Malik conducted hearing of Imran’s appeal against the BHC order. Justice Ijaz said how this bench can rule against the order of a division bench of the BHC.

Later, an IHC division bench comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aamer Farooq and Jus­tice Miagul Hassan Aurangzeb granted the PTI chief 14-day protective bail in the Quetta’s lawyer murder case.

Earlier, Advocate Sardar La­tif Khosa, appearing on be­half of Imran Khan before the apex court, prayed to the court to constitute a three-judge bench for hearing of this peti­tion. However, Justice Ijaz stat­ed they could not constitute a bench, as this is the prerogative of the Chief Justice. He further said that they would refer the matter to the chief justice for this purpose. Imran Khan after the proceeding filed an applica­tion requesting the chief justice to form a three-judge bench and fix the case today.

The bench also turned down his plea for interim relief, and issued notices to the Prosecutor General and Advocate Gener­al Balochistan. Justice Ijaz said without hearing the other party they could not grant stay.

Khosa informed that his cli­ent’s life is in danger, and re­quested the bench to order that his client not be arrested. Jus­tice Ayesha said the petitioner’s presence is not necessary for suspension of the proceeding.

Onset of the proceeding, Lat­if Khosa read the FIR, and said that Shar’s son had lodged an FIR against the petitioner wherein sections of Anti-Ter­rorism Act (ATA) have been in­cluded. Justice Ijaz questioned which forum determines about the ATA provisions.

Imran’s lawyer responded that basically that was the re­sponsibility of the SHO of a po­lice station. Justice Ijaz said if SHO order is wrong then where it could be challenged. He in­quired whether the petitioner had approached relevant forum against the inclusion of ATA pro­vision in the FIR.

Latif Khosa said non-bail­able warrant have been issued of his client. Justice Ayesha in­quired whether the petitioner has challenged the Joint Investi­gation Team. Upon that the law­yer stated his client is unaware how many cases have been reg­istered against him. He said during investigation the SHO cannot include sections of ATA.

A division bench of the BHC comprising Chief Justice Naeem Afghan and Justice Aamir Nawaz Rana on 15-06-23 had dismissed the PTI chief’s ap­plication to quash an FIR regis­tered against him regarding as­sassination of Shar.

Shar was shot dead by un­identified assailants near Ala­mo Chowk on Airport Road on June 06, this year. According to the police, the senior Supreme Court lawyer received 15 bul­let injuries on his body and died on the spot. Two days later, the police booked Imran Khan in the case on the complaint of the lawyer’s son.

The murdered lawyer, Shar, had filed a constitutional peti­tion against the former PM in the BHC, seeking proceedings against the former premier un­der Article 6 (high treason) of the Constitution.

Then the bench deferred the hearing of the sine die.

Meanwhile, the IHC set aside the order of a sessions court wherein it had dismissed his pe­tition to declare the Toshkhana case as inadmissible.

A single bench of IHC headed by Chief Justice Aamer Farooq announced the verdict which he had reserved on June 23 in a pe­tition filed by Imran Khan chal­lenging the Toshakhana trial proceedings.

Imran was indicted in the Toshakhana case on May 10, as Additional Sessions Judge (West) had dismissed his ob­jections regarding the ad­missibility of the case. Lat­er, Khan approached the IHC, which granted a stay on crim­inal proceedings till June 8. Af­ter the hearing resumed last month, Justice Farooq reserved his judgment in the petition on June 23 which he announced on Tuesday.

In the verdict, the IHC bench asked the sessions court to con­sider the the PTI chairman’s pe­tition as pending and decide it afresh within seven days. It not­ed, “The instant petition is al­lowed and the impugned order to the extent of dismissal of ap­plication, mentioned above, is set aside; consequently, the ap­plication in question shall be deemed to be pending and de­cided afresh by the learned tri­al court within seven days from the receipt of this judgment, keeping in view the law in ques­tion and observations made above.” The bench observed that the sessions court had left the “issue undecided and dis­missed the application of the petitioner with scanty reasons which left the main legal issues undecided or unresolved”.

It added that it would be only proper for the trial court to de­cide the application afresh af­ter hearing the parties with de­tailed reasons keeping in view the provisions of Article 10-A of the Constitution. 

“The examination of the im­pugned order shows that is­sues have not been dealt with in a proper manner, as it should have been and in such a situ­ation, to substitute the find­ings, this Court would be sup­plementing the findings which would be inappropriate exer­cise of the jurisdiction as de­tailed findings ought to have been given in a proper manner in order for this Court to exam­ine the same in supervisory ju­risdiction whether legal issues have been dealt with rightly,” said the verdict.

It added, “The Court, in its ex­ercise of jurisdiction, has the power to do complete justice and should avoid supplement­ing the findings.”

“It is reiterated that learned trial court has left the issues undecided and has dismissed the application of the petition­er with scanty reasons which left the main legal issues unde­cided or unresolved. It would be only proper for the learned trial court to decide the application afresh after hearing the parties with detailed reasons keeping in view the provisions of Article 10-A of the Constitution as the foremost consideration,” main­tained the judgment.