News
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
SC takes suo motu over alleged corruption by two ex-PMsStaff Report
Islamabad: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has taken suo motu notice of the alleged corruption in two mega projects, approved during the tenure of two former Prime Ministers, Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.
The chief justice has taken suo motu notice on a note of the Supreme Court Registrar, based on a press clipping of an Urdu newspaper, stating therein that the record of mega projects approved during the tenure of two ex-Prime Ministers is being tampered with, due to an apprehension that it might be called-in by the Supreme Court.
The newspaper report had claimed that efforts are being made by the bureaucracy to conceal the dubious summaries adding that despite a ban, Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani granted 450 illegal CNG station licenses in collusion with Tauqir Sadiq, brother in law of Jahangir Badar – engaging in billions of rupees worth of corruption during this process.
The newspaper also claimed that another scandal of mega corruption is likely to come to surface involving Raja Pervaiz Ashraf approving 200 illegal CNG stations licenses, despite the ban. OGRA instead of implementing the Policy had constituted a Technical Committee for its scrutiny and sought clarification from the Ministry of Petroleum. Therefore, the OGRA had not issued these 200 CNG stations licenses so far despite the fact that they are being pressurised for issuance of at least 69 licenses out of 200, which belong to relatives/favourites of ex-Parliamentarians.
Furthermore, the ex-Advisor to Petroleum Ministry Dr. Asim Hussain and ex-Finance Minister Saleem H. Mandviwala in collusion with each other got one time approval of the summary for declaring illegal importing of 59 containers of CNG cylinders from ECC as legal. Besides, eight groups of CNG sector are involved in this scam of importing 42,000 cylinders of CNG. The note of the Registrar concludes by stating that the allegations, if proved, will constitute a blatant violation of government policy, PPRA rules and breach of Fundamental Rights guaranteed under Article 9, 18, 24 and 24 of the Constitution.
After going through the contents of the note, the Chief Justice of Pakistan has ordered fixation of the above matter in Court on 03.04.2013.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk