The Lahore High Court on Friday issued notices to the Old Anarkali Police Station SHO and legal advisor of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) on a petition seeking quashing of a FIR registered under Section 489-F of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) against owner of a rental power project.
Petitioner Habibullah Khan, through his counsel, submitted that he participated in a bid invited by the federal government in 2008 for establishment of rental power projects. The counsel said that the petitioner’s company Young Gen Power Limited, being the lowest bidder, acquired the project. But PEPCO Legal Advisor Shahid Iqbal asked the petitioner for illegal gratification for approval of the project, as then federal water and power secretary Ismail Qureshi was his brother in-law. Iqbal is son of former LHC chief justice (CJ) Sardar Iqbal.
The counsel alleged that Iqbal threatened the petitioner to get his bid cancelled through Ismail, if the petitioner did not pay the bribe to him. Owing to immense pressure asserted by the respondent advisor, the petitioner gave Iqbal up to Rs 9 million during 2008 to 2010. The petitioner also gave Rs 50,000 per month to Iqbal, as his personal expense, the counsel said. He said that after paying bribe to the PEPCO legal advisor, an official letter was issued to the petitioner on September 6, 2008 and the project was started. But he said that the respondent did not stop his illegal demands and again asked the petitioner to give him post-dated cheques worth Rs 7 million and threatened him to damage his project. Therefore, the petitioner issued post-dated cheques to the respondent to keep his project intact, the counsel said. The Supreme Court took suo motu notice against rental power projects in 2008 and on its order, the petitioner returned Rs 1.25 billion given by PEPCO as project advance and the project came to a halt. The counsel said that the respondent deposited the post-dated cheques issued by the petitioner in bank and the same were dishonoured. The respondent got a case registered against the petitioner at the Old Anarkali Police Station on June 16 but the petitioner secured pre-arrest bail from court and also filed a recovery suit against Shahid and Ismail. The petitioner requested the court to order police to quash the FIR against him as being illegal and based on mala fide.
After hearing the arguments, Justice Anwaarul Haq issued notice to the respondents and directed them to file reply by July 18.
