NAB produces witness against Dar in accountability court

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday appeared before an accountability court which last week indicted him for possessing assets beyond means.

The finance minister appeared before the court where statement of prosecution witness was recorded.

The NAB produced two witnesses Ishtiaq Ahmed and Tariq Javed who are associated with Inland Revenue and a private bank respectively.

The reference against the minister was filed by the NAB in the light of Supreme Court orders in Panama Papers case.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday dismissed  Dar's petitions, challenging his indictment and trial by the accountability court.

The counsel took the ground that as per provision of Section 265 (C) CrPC, the law mandated that a charge-sheet could not be framed against the accused before seven days after supply of the documents.

However, NAB while rejecting the application had totally misconstrued the provision of Section 265(C) CrPC and the order was manifestly illegal and without lawful authority, he added.

That the impugned order had been passed in breach of Article 4 A the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 which, inter alia, mandates that every citizen should be dealt in accordance with the law, he added.

The counsel said that passing of impugned order in breach of mandatory provision of law has resulted in great prejudice to the petitioner inasmuch as that the petitioner did not have fair opportunity of perusal of the entire material comprising 23 volumes on the basis of which the charge was to be framed, he alleged.

That as a matter of fact, the framing of charge without observing mandatory provision of law was in breach of principle of fair trial guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan. Justice Athar Minnallah observed that the petitioner should take up any objections with the monitoring judge of the Supreme Court.

The judge also observed that the petitioner did not attach a copy of the charge-sheet. To which the counsel said the petitioner's right to fair trial was compromised by the fact that copy of charge-sheet had yet not been provided to the petitioner, while the reference was fixed for the recording of the evidence of the prosecution on October 4, 2017, he added.

The corruption reference, pertaining to Dar's owning assets disproportionate to his known sources of income, was filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in the light of the Supreme Court's July-28 judgment in the Panama Papers case.

Dar, who submitted the petition on Monday, stated that he was indicted by the accountability court without giving him the mandated time and requested the court to suspend the indictment proceedings.

The finance minister had said as he should be given time to file his response to the case, the court should order the accountability court to suspend its trial proceedings until a decision on his petition. He was indicted on Sept 27. He denied all charges and vowed to prove his innocence in the court.

NAB had submitted a list of 28 witnesses to the court, which it would start producing from the next hearing on Oct 4.