LAHORE - An application was filed on Wednesday before the Supreme Court, Lahore Registry, to seek direction to restrain the NAB chairman, the Punjab director general, DG (HR and finance) and the Punjab additional prosecutor general from performing their duties till decision on the implementation of the rental power projects case pending before the apex court.
The civil miscellaneous application was filed by Advocate Shahnshah Shamil Piracha in an already pending case before the SC. The applicant prayed to the court to stop these officials from exercising their powers till the decision. The petitioner also prayed to the court to allow him to become a party in the case to argue as a public interest litigant.
The petitioner, through Advocate Azhar Siddique, prayed to court to appoint a special public prosecutor in the above case and other corruption cases coming under the NAB jurisdiction.The petitioner submitted that the matter was of mega corruption which had deprived people not only of public money but also of basic necessities of life, especially electricity, and was directly related to the enforcement of Article 9 of the Constitution. He added the NAB chairman, prosecutors and other officers were trying to protect the real culprits. He said he wanted to place relevant record before the court.
The petitioner submitted that as far as the suspicious death of Kamran Faisal was concerned, a lot had appeared in newspapers and had not been rebutted by the persons concerned. He said the bosses of Faisal were allegedly pressurising him to declare the prime minister innocent, but he had refused to meet this illegal demand. On this, the NAB high-ups had asked the political leadership to handle him on their own.
He recalled that on the previous hearing in the SC, NAB Chairman Fasih Bukhari had taken a stance that both the reports sent by the IOs to get approval for filing references in the accountability courts were faulty and lacked sufficient evidence to implicate the accused, including the PM. “But, contrary to the NAB chairman’s stance, the facts are entirely different,” he said, adding after this disclosure of Faisal who was a key member of the investigation team the NAB should be directed to file both the references against the incumbent PM and other influential accused.
The petitioner stated DG HR Kausar Iqbal, one of the blue-eyed officers in the NAB, had been interfering with the investigation proceedings. The petitioner also attached a letter issued by Ms Iqbal with his application.
The petitioner prayed to the court that to conduct fair and impartial investigation, NAB Chairman Fasih Bukhari, Khursheed Anwar Bhinder, DG NAB (Punjab), DG HR Kausar Iqbal, Rana Zahid Mahmood and additional prosecutor general, Rawalpinidi, be restrained from interfering in the investigation proceedings of corruption in the rental power projects.