Daily Times

An accountability court Wednesday dismissed applications of former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and ten others seeking acquittal in the Naudero II power plant case.

Judge Muhammad Bashir issued the verdict on the petition and ordered the trial against the accused to continue. The anti-graft watchdog opposed the acquittal plea.

The anti-corruption watchdog had filed a reference pertaining to Naudero II power plant case in 2013 alleging that Ashraf and others accused misused powers, inflicting a loss of Rs75 million on the national exchequer.

In 2014, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had filed the Piranghaib RPP reference against Mr Ashraf, Mr Tareen, former federal secretaries Ismail Qureshi and Shahid Rafi, ex-managing director Tahir Basharat Cheema and directors of Pepco Razi Abbas, Wazir Ali Bhaio, Saleem Arif and Iqbal Ali Shah.

Interestingly, the prosecution witnesses when cross-examined in the case admitted that no loss was caused to the national exchequer in the Piranghaib RPP.

For instance, Mohammad Yousaf, chief engineer and the then director technical for RPP, when cross-examined by Amjad Iqbal Qureshi, counsel for Mr Ashraf, stated that “no advance payment was made to the sponsors of Piranghaib. Since no implementation of board’s decision and that of ECC [Economic Coordination Committee] was made, no loss was caused to the national exchequer.”

The witness further said: “As no advance payment was made in this case, government of Pakistan guarantee was also not given to the service providers.”

NAB had accused Mr Ashraf of misusing authority during his tenure as the minister for water and power to obtain approval from the ECC and the federal cabinet for an increase in the down payment to rental power companies from 7 per cent to 14pc, amounting to about Rs22 billion.

Mr Ashraf served as prime minister from June 22, 2012 to March 16, 2013.