Daily Times

A local court in Lahore on Monday approved a 14-day judicial remand of incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) President Parvez Elahi in a case relating to illegal appointments in the Punjab Assembly.

After completion of his two-day physical remand, Elahi, who remains imprisoned in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail, was produced before the court of Judicial Magistrate Aamir Raza by the officials of the Anti-Corruption Establishment. The ACE, however, pleaded with the court to extend his physical remand for 10 more days to complete the investigations.

Elahi was initially arrested on June 1 from outside his residence in a Rs70 million graft case related to the embezzlement of development funds allocated for the Gujrat district. Since then, the former Punjab chief minister has been released several times only to be arrested immediately in different cases.

At the outset of today’s proceedings, the ACE’s lawyer apprised the court that they had to recover the suspect’s mobile phone. The lawyer maintained that Rs4.1 million were recovered from Elahi’s house, adding that the ACE has to probe into the matter.

On the other hand, Elahi’s counsel argued that the interim government was lodging fake and baseless cases against his client. “The government is subjecting [Elahi] to political victimisation by arresting him [again and again] in fake and baseless cases,” he said.

After hearing the arguments from both sides, the magistrate rejected ACE’s request and sent him to jail on a 14-day judicial remand. According to the details provided by an ACE spokesperson, Elahi made 12 illegal recruitments in the Punjab Assembly on grade 17 positions. The candidates were recruited in the provincial assembly by altering the records. “The illegal recruitments were made through fake testing services,” said the spokesperson. He said that the investigation by the ACE proved that fake recruitments were made in the Punjab Assembly, adding that the anti-corruption has also arrested Secretary Rai Mumtaz Hussain in connection with this case on the basis of evidence. “Rai Mumtaz was involved in a fake recruiting process with Parvez Elahi,” he said.