Billion of rupees were distributed among PPP and its allied parties just to win votes in May 2013 election during the regime of Raja Pervez Ashraf, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary said while hearing the distribution of public money case on Wednesday.
He said the federal government must acknowledge that it was a wrong practice and would not be repeated again.
The CJP said it was inappropriate the way the government did nothing in its five-year tenure, but at the end of the day, it opened the national exchequer and doled out public money to win sympathies of the voters.
“But the people are well aware of this drama, so the results of elections are in front of everyone.”
Earlier, Attorney General Munir A Malik said in his arguments that although the constitution provided the prerogative powers to the prime minister, doling out state money for political gains was not justified.
The AG told the court that funds were given to some people which had no existence in reality. He said there was not 50 percent transparency in distributing the funds, while rules were not followed in 70 percent of the cases during the PPP’s tenure, as the PM gave away Rs 31.9 billion to different people.
Malik said a sum of Rs 22 billion had been allocated as the PM’s discretionary fund during the previous regime, which was later on raised to Rs 52 billion without any lawful authority.
The audit DG maintained that Rs 37 billion was issued to Pakistan People’s Party and its allied parties by the previous government.
The representative of the AGPR took the plea that the PM could use discretionary funds with the approval of parliament.
“Earlier, the development funds were used by the local bodies, but as the LBs were not present, the PM gave members of parliament the funds for development work.”
To this, the CJP said using discretionary powers did not mean distributing funds among blue-eyed persons.
He said the PM should had put the fund at the disposal of the federal cabinet, but the real mismanagement began when the PM not only diverted the funds of other national projects towards his constituency, but also allocated funds to coalition partners.
Justice Jawad S Khawaja said the constitution did not allow any discretionary fund for anyone.
He said it was astonishing that there was no writ of the government if the prime minister could take billions of rupees on a single telephone call.
Justice Azmat Saeed said how could the federation do a job that was not permitted by the constitution.
The attorney general later completed his arguments in the case, while Iftikhar Gilani would begin his argument today (Thursday).
