- Former finance minister’s counsel maintains his client never received court summons at London address
- Advocate Harris to submit complete medical report at next hearing
ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Monday reserved its decision and adjourned the hearing into the corruption case against former finance minister Ishaq Dar till December 11 after Dar’s counsel requested the court to delay the process of declaring his client a proclaimed offender.
The court was expected to declare Dar, who is accused of possessing assets disproportionate to his declared sources of income, a proclaimed offender during Monday’s hearing as the deadline given to the former minister to appear before the court in connection with the reference filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the light of Supreme Court’s July 28 verdict in the Panama Papers case expired.
The former finance minister has consistently failed to appear before the court despite being summoned multiple times and has remained in London for some time now where he is said to be undergoing medical treatment.
During Monday’s hearing, Dar’s counsel Khawaja Harris told the bench that his client’s medical report will be submitted to the court next week and will contain the PML-N leader’s diagnosis. Therefore, he added, the process of declaring Dar a proclaimed offender should be deferred
“If the medical board wants, it can conduct a medical examination of Dar at the Pakistan High Commission in London.”
Responding to this, the judge remarked that if Dar was getting treatment in Pakistan then a medical board could’ve been constituted. “A medical board can still be constituted,” replied Dar’s counsel.
Dar’s medical report shows that he has chest pain, said Advocate Harris, adding that the former finance minister’s arteries have constricted by 35 per cent to 50 per cent.
A medical examination of Dar will be held next week, Dar’s counsel remarked further, stating the court should give his client more time.
The NAB prosecution team objected to the request for a suspension in proceedings.
“Why is Dar running from the court when he has not been diagnosed yet?” the NAB prosecutor asked.
In response, Harris argued that under Article 9 of the Constitution every citizen of the country has a right to live a healthy life and argued that it was incorrect to assume that Dar has been in hiding, adding that court should give some time to the senator. He also claimed that Dar never received the court summons at his London address, which is declared in the court documents.
The judge observed that the court, in an unusual instance, has given Dar about three weeks.
Over Dar’s continuous absence in the case, the court had issued non-bailable arrest warrants against him on Nov 14 and declared him an absconder on Nov 21.
Later, after a period of 10 days (instead of the usual 30), the court declared Dar a proclaimed offender.
During the proceedings, Dar’s counsel argued that “a suspect is declared a proclaimed offender after a period of 30 days”. To this, Accountability Judge Muhammad Bashir remarked: “You have still got 15 days.”
Dar’s counsel further argued that his client should be given an exemption on medical grounds and the arrest warrants issued against him by the court should be cancelled.
In a previous hearing of the case, the court had declared Dar an absconder and warned his guarantors of the confiscation of surety bonds worth Rs5 million if the accused did not join trial proceedings.
The noose seems to be tightening further around the former finance minister after NAB decided to reopen the Rs1.2 billion Hudaibiya Paper Mills reference against him.
The Hudaibiya reference will be the second ‘mega-corruption’ case against Dar being investigated by NAB, after the reference filed against him in the wake of the Panama Papers case judgement.
The reopening of the case was recommended by the joint investigation team formed by the apex court to probe the Panama Papers allegations against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his family members.
On July 28, a five-member Supreme Court bench had ordered NAB to file three references against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and one against Dar, on petitions filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Imran Khan, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Sirajul Haq and Awami Muslim League’s Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.
In its reference against the finance minister, NAB alleged that “the accused has acquired assets and pecuniary interests/resources in his own name and/or in the name of his dependents of an approximate amount of Rs831.678 million (approx)”.
The reference alleged that the assets were “disproportionate to his known sources of income for which he could not reasonably account for”.
The government also withdrew the portfolio of finance minister from Ishaq Dar.
How could the medical report of a confirmed crook who laundered people’s money for his employer’s favour, be ever trusted?
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