Mehrangate: CJ says agencies not working according to mandate

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) resumed today the hearing of Mehrangate scandal, Geo News reported.

A three-Judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry comprising Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez heard the case.

Justice Khilji Arif Hussain said to former chief of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani (retd) that you have to decide so you better hire a lawyer.

Attorney General for Pakistan Molvi Anwarul Haq informed the court that he has scrutinised the statements of three people in this case and there was nothing logical to keep them classified.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry remarked that the agencies are not working as per their mandate. 'We can not comprise on the interests of the State.'

While referring to Asad Durrani the CJ said you are accepting that you distributed money. 'You and Aslam Beg were generals when this happened and we don't know the consequences of this act.'

During today's proceedings, the issue of toppling the Punjab government in 2009 with the help of secret Intelligence Bureau (IB) funds also surfaced.

The central figure in the case, Younis Habib also filed a petition in the SC seeking formation of a judicial commission to recover the money from the politicians. The court then issued notice to the concerned parties.

Later, the hearing was adjourned till March 30th.

Asad Durrani on March 09 had testified before the SC that he received instructions from the then chief of army staff Mirza Aslam Baig to make arrangements for disbursement of Rs140 million among the candidates contesting 1990 general elections to manipulate the results.

He said "I received instruction from the COAS, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, that a certain business community in Karachi had raised some contribution to support the election campaign of the IJI and if I could arrange it to be distributed as per the formulas that would be conveyed to me by the election cell in the President's office."

He said that it was his belief that former army chief was under the instructions from late president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

However, denying existence of any political cell in ISI, he said the political work could be carried out by those who had been assigned the task.