Karkey RPP case: Ex-PM Raja only accused of abetting main suspect, rules AC
The Accountability Court judge, Muhammad Ali Warraich, in its detail judgement of the Karkey case, says that former prime minister Ashraf and 11 others discharged from Karkey Power Project (RPP) case as they (Ashraf and others) abetting the principal accused, against whom the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had already withdrawn charges as they (Ashraf and others) entitled to be discharged from the case.
According to the judgment, the Supreme Court had declared the contracts with Rental Power Plants illegal in its decision dated March 30, 2012. The apex court had also ordered recovery of losses, along with markup, from those responsible.
Following the Supreme Court's directives, the NAB initiated inquiries against several rental power companies, including Karkey, which was converted into a formal investigation on December 18, 2022.
The initial inquiry led to a reference being filed against 31 accused.
Later, a supplementary reference was filed against 12 individuals for awarding an illegal contract to Karkey.
The NAB filed the case under the amended NAB Ordinance 1999, accusing the suspects of causing losses to the national exchequer and accepting kickbacks.
However, before the trial could conclude, amendments were introduced to the NAB laws, leading to the case being returned to NAB on the grounds of lacking jurisdiction.
On September 5, 2023, the Supreme Court partially struck down the NAB amendments, which led to the revival of the reference in the accountability court.
Subsequently, an intra-court appeal restored the NAB Amendment Act 2022 in its original form, and the case resumed from where it had been left.
It says that perusal of record shows that initially the original reference was filed against 31 accused persons, the record further shows that NAB had withdrawn the case to the extent of accused No 1 to 11 arrayed in original reference on March 6, 2020, whereas, accused persons namely, Rabia Laique, Bushra Zulqarnain, Umer Zulqarnain, Sher Malik and Amir Malik have been discharged according to verdict March 18, 2020.
The verdict says that examination of the record shows that the case of remaining accused persons who have been appearing before the court is squarely at par with the accused No 1 to 11 of the original reference against whom the NAB had withdrawn the case and the accused persons who have been discharged vide order dated March 2020. The allegation levelled against the remaining accused persons who have been appearing before the court is mostly the abetment of the principal accused against whom NAB had withdrawn the case. Thus, remaining accused persons are entitled to be discharged from the offence, it says.
The accused persons, namely, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Muhammad Ismail Qureshi, Fazal Ahmed Khan, NA Zuberi. Tahir Basharat Cheema, Muhammad Saleem Arif, Muhammad Razi Abbas, Iqbal Ali Shah, Wazir Ali Bhaio, Hafeez ur Rehman Abbasi and Rasool Khan Mehmood are discharged from this case.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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