Supreme Court issues contempt notice to Raja Pervez Ashraf

The Supreme Court of Pakistan Thursday issued a contempt of court notice to former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in corruption in the Rental Power Projects (RPPs).

The court ordered Asharf to appear in person before the bench in the next hearing. The hearing was adjourned till two weeks.

The former prime minister had written a letter urging the apex court to constitute an inquiry commission comprising Dr Shoaib Suddle to probe into the multi-billion RPPs scandal, independent of the ongoing investigations being conducted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The court had come heavily on Ashraf for attempting to initiate an inquiry commission. The court said the Supreme Court is not a post office that everyone write letter, saying that Ashraf should have filed a review petition rather than writing a letter.

The Supreme Court had ordered the arrest of Raja Pervez Ashraf in January, however, he could not be arrested because of being the country’s Prime Minister.

Raja Pervez Ashraf was accused of violating rules in rental power projects when he was the Minister for Water and Power during this government.

The apex court in its earlier verdict in March last year had observed that the rules and regulations were violated in these projects due to which the national exchequer witnessed losses of billions.

The Supreme Court has declared the Rental Power Projects (RPPs) as illegal and also ordered them to be shut down.

The Supreme Court had in the last year verdict ordered to initiate proceedings against the former Water and Power Minister Raja Pervez Asharaf and all others involved in the case. However, the country’s anti-corruption panel had not carried out required investigation despite the orders.

Last year the court had also ordered the arrest of several other former ministers and officials involved in the RPPs. The court asked the country’s anti-corruption panel to ensure that no one flee the country.

A two-member bench comprising of the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain had previously heard the case last year.

Prior to RPPs, the electricity generation system had sufficient potential, but “instead of taking curative steps for its improvement, billions of rupees were spent on two RPPs namely BHIKKI and SHARAQPUR, which proved complete failures,” the last year court verdict had stated.

The previous verdict further held the finance ministry, the state-owned power supply institutions responsible for “causing huge losses to the public exchequer, which run into billions of rupees by making 7 percent to 14 percent down payments to, and purchasing electricity on higher rates, from RPPs”.

On Dec. 15, 2011, chief justice had taken suo motu notice of applications of then Housing Minister Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat and Khwaja Asif who alleged that corruption had been committed linked to the RPPs.

On Nov. 24, 2011, Raja Pervez Asharaf told the court that Pakistan needed an addition of 1,200 MW every year as the power requirement would increase to 130,000 MW by 2030.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=39463

Posted by Tahir Khan on Mar 28 2013. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.