The Supreme Court has accepted for hearing applications of the Punjab government and journalists, seeking details of all the assets and tax record of Midas Private Ltd from the FBR and the SECP.
A two-member SC bench comprising Justice Jawad S Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain observed that allegations of fraud and misappropriation of millions of rupees had been leveled against Midas Private Ltd which needed to be investigated. It also sought record from all applications, FBR and SECP pertaining to the company.
The Punjab information secretary submitted before the court that cases had been registered against him and nine other applicants by NAB after a case of Rs 750 million corruption was got registered with the Anti Corruption court against Midas Private Ltd. He said the owner of Midas had been declared a proclaimed offender and had not been arrested so far. He said the Punjab government had blacklisted Midas but the federal and other provincial governments were still dealing with it despite allegations of corruption.
He also informed the court that Transparency International had also issued a report about corruption of Midas while the auditor general in its audit report had stated that the agency had committed corruption of Rs 650 million and not Rs 210 million.
He said the Punjab government had repeatedly requested the federal government for action against Midas but no action had been taken so far. He asked why were the federal and other provincial governments doing business with Midas when a provincial government had blacklisted it. When the hearing began on Wednesday, applicants Hamid Mir, Absar Alam, and Advocate Abid Saqi appeared on behalf of PEMRA and the federal government. Yasin Azad Advocate appeared on behalf of Value TV, Munir A Malik for Dawn TV while Secretary Information Punjab Mohiuddin, Senior journalist Mazhar Abbas, Arshad Sharif and Asma Sherazi appeared as party to the case.
Senior journalist and TV Anchor Hamid Mir said that not only Secretary Information Punjab but three other persons namely Ali Tahir, Shahid Javed and Aftab Ali Shah have also filed applications against Midas which should be given due consideration.
At this the court observed that it would look into all the applications thoroughly and give a verdict. Absar Alam said they have similar complaints and reservations against Midas as submitted by Punjab government and other parties. The hearing was then adjourned for September 17.