Rejecting a report submitted by the Water and Power Ministry over Rental Power Projects (RPPs), a two-member Supreme Court (SC) bench on Friday sought a fresh report on the details of all rental power plants.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain was hearing a suo motu case coupled with two identical petitions filed by Federal Minister for Housing and Works Faisal Saleh Hayat and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) legislator Khawaja Asif involving allegations of corruption in issuing the contracts of the RPPs. The bench required details on RPPs’ power production, payments made to them in advance, their dates of operation, cost per unit and the cost being charged to consumers, and variations in power production during the last two months.
The chief justice said that since the RPPs were in question, former Water and Power minister Raja Pervez Ashraf could appear before the court to clear his position. He said the former minister could also become a party in the case. He observed that the decision over the sensitive issue of the RPPs would be covering all aspects of the case, as a federal minister had levelled corruption charges, which had made the case very sensitive and unusual. He said Hayat had been pointing out corruption in the RPPs for the last two years, and he approached the court as a last resort.
Ijaz Babar, a representative of the government, submitted a report according to which only four RPPs were working. The chief justice rejected the report and directed him to submit a fresh detailed report. Khawaja Tariq Rahim, counsel for the Water and Power Ministry, told the court that he would tell Raja Pervez Ashraf that he could appear before the court if he wanted to. He said the former minister would be prosecuted if found guilty of corruption.
