Govt 'ran away' after forming sub-committee in Asghar Khan case: CJP
June 01, 2018
LAHORE: Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Saqib Nisar remarked that the government 'ran away' after forming a sub-committee for the implementation of the Asghar Khan case verdict.
The top judge made the remarks during a case hearing at the apex court’s Lahore Registry on Friday.
The chief justice questioned the deputy attorney general regarding the decision taken by the cabinet over the case.
Deputy attorney general informed the two-member bench that the cabinet has made a positive decision regarding which Attorney General of Pakistan (AGFP) Ashtar Ausaf Ali will brief the court.
Chief Justice Nisar also expressed anger over the absence of AGFP from the court.
“This is such an important case and the attorney general is least bothered. Is this the performance of the attorney general office,” he observed.
The bench then summoned the AGFP to appear before the court on June 2.
On Thursday, the CJP had reprimanded the federal government over lack of progress in the Asghar Khan case.
"Why hasn't the federal cabinet done anything regarding the Asghar Khan case verdict," he remarked, adding that this is a serious case but the government is least concerned about it.
Previously, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar had remarked that the court has given its order in the case and rejected review petitions of former army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg and former Inter-Services Intelligence DG Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, accused of illegally influencing the 1990 elections.
Now, the implementation of the verdict remains, the chief justice asserted.
"To-date the federal government did not do anything," he regretted, adding that the FIA probe after the verdict also ceased after a certain point.
Case history
On October 19, 2012, the apex court had issued a 141-page verdict, ordering legal proceedings against Gen (retd) Beg and Lt Gen (retd) Durrani in a case filed 16 years ago by former air chief Air Marshal Asghar Khan.
Khan, who passed away in January this year, was represented in the Supreme Court by renowned lawyer Salman Akram Raja.
Khan had petitioned the Supreme Court in 1996 alleging that the two senior army officers and the then-president Ghulam Ishaq Khan had doled out Rs140 million among several politicians ahead of the 1990 polls to ensure Benazir Bhutto's defeat in the polls.
The Islamic Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), consisting of nine parties including the Pakistan Muslim League, National Peoples Party and Jamaat-e-Islami, had won the 1990 elections, with Nawaz Sharif being elected prime minister. The alliance had been formed to oppose the Benazir Bhutto-led Pakistan Peoples Party.
In 1996, Khan had written a letter to the then Supreme Court Chief Justice Nasim Hassan Shah naming Beg, Durrani and Younis Habib, the ex-Habib Bank Sindh chief and owner of Mehran Bank, about the unlawful disbursement of public money and its misuse for political purposes.
The 2012 apex court judgment, authored by the then-Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry, had directed the Federal Investigation Agency to initiate a transparent investigation and subsequent trial if sufficient evidence is found against the former army officers.
That investigation is yet to conclude.
