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Sunday, January 20, 2013SC hears PM’s review plea in RPPs case tomorrow
By Hasnaat Malik
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) will take up tomorrow (Monday) Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf’s review petition against the court’s March 30, 2012, judgement in the rental power projects (RPPs) corruption case.
A three-member SC bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, would hear several review petitions, including that of the prime minister, federal government and different power companies against the court’s judgement in the case. The SC will take up the PM’s review petition for the first time while Wasim Sajjad would appear in court on behalf of Raja Pervez Ashraf.
It is expected that the counsel for the PM would request the court to suspend its proceedings about implementation of its judgement until his client’s review petition is decided.
Legal experts believe that in the wake of SC’s last week order against all the accused in the case including the PM, hearing of the review petition would be of much significance.
The government had also filed a review petition in the case on April 25, 2012, saying that the court’s findings were “not justified and the court did not consider the material facts which were placed on record”.
On March 30, 2012, the SC had declared all the RPPs contracts illegal and non-transparent and directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman to proceed against all the persons involved in corruption, including former minister for water and power Raja Pervez Ashraf.
The NAB later issued arrest warrants of 33 people, allegedly involved in the RPPs scam.
The petition was filed by Water and Power Ministry through its lawyer Khwaja Tariq Rahim.
The government made Faisal Saleh Hayat, Khwaja Muhammad Asif and the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) respondents. Justifying RPPs, the government said in its petition that the induction of RPPs as a short measure was a proper exercise. It said their induction would have helped bridge the power.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk