An accountability court has deferred the announcement of its reserved verdict on an acquittal plea which was filed by the former law minister Babar Awan in the Nandipur Power Project.
Accountability Court Judge Arshad Malik was expected to announce the verdict during Tuesday’s hearing but the verdict got delayed so that the court could announce its verdict on all acquittal petitions collectively.
The judge then made the decision to adjourn the hearing of the case till May 6.
The case is centered around the Nandipur Power Project which was approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) in December 2007 at a cost of 329 million dollars. After approval, the contract was signed in January 2008, between Northern Power Generation Company Limited (NPGCL) and Dong Fang Electric Corporation (DEC), China and two consortiums — COFACE for 68.967 million euros and SINOSURE for 150.151 million dollars.
In 2008, the Ministry of Water and Power approached the Ministry of Law to issue a legal opinion but the latter repeatedly refused to issue the opinion on flimsy grounds.
The legal opinion finally was issued in November 2011; the delay caused a loss of 27 billion rupees.