Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday ordered former presidents General (retd) Pervez Musharraf and Asif Ali Zardari and former attorney general Justice (retd) Malik Qayyum to submit details of their foreign bank accounts in a case pertaining to the National Reconciliation Ordinance passed by Musharraf regime in 2007.

The controversial piece of legislation had granted amnesty to politicians and other individuals by annulling various corruption and criminal cases against them paving the way for their return to the country.

Hearing the case as part of a three-member bench, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar said he wanted details of all assets owned by the respondents. He said respondents should also submit details of their children’s foreign assets.

Zardari’s counsel Advocate Farooq H Naek told the court that his client had already submitted an affidavit regarding his properties, alongside his nomination papers, to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). He said Pakistan Peoples Party chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari also submitted details of assets owned by him to the ECP. Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan said that the same affidavit should be submitted in the Supreme Court as well.

The court then adjourned the hearing for an indefinite period.

Earlier, Zardari submitted a response to the Supreme Court through his counsel maintaining that he played no role in forming the controversial law. He said cases against him were quashed in 2007 in compliance with NRO, but they were reopened after the NRO was overruled by the apex court.

The former president said he was acquitted from criminal cases in trials held subsequently.

Petitioner Feroz Shah Gilani had requested the court in April this year to order recovery of ‘huge amounts of public money’ misappropriated and wasted by the respondents – Musharraf, Zardari and Qayyum. He contended that Musharraf subverted the Constitution by declaring emergency followed by the promulgation of the NRO, through which criminal and corruption cases against politicians, including Zardari, were ‘arbitrarily withdrawn’ causing huge financial losses to the national exchequer.

Published in Daily Times, August 8^th 2018.