Zardari’s plea for extra jail facilities turned down

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Tuesday rejected the applications of former president and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur, seeking A-class and extra facilities in prison during judicial remand in fake accounts cases.

Deputy Prosecutor General of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi pleaded before the court that the petitions were not maintainable as the accused should approach inspector general (IG) Prisons, Punjab — a relevant forum for their requests.

He stated the government had removed the rule of A and B classes in prisons and had replaced it with “better class”. He said one had to request IG Prisons to get this facility, who was bound to refer the matter to the home department for a decision.

Abbasi told the court that the prisoners in “better class” were provided with facilities like common prisoners but they could avail extra facilities at their own expenditure. He prayed the court to dismiss the applications of the two siblings as this matter was not relevant to the court.

Earlier, Zardari’s counsel Sardar Latif Khosa contended before judge Muhammad Bashir that since his client had been holding the president office and currently he was a member of the parliament, the Constitution allowed him extra facilities for life time. The former president was suffering from cardiac problems and this court had also allowed him to keep an attendant during the NAB custody, he argued.

Talpur’s counsel Farook H Naek argued that this was not an administrative issue, rather it was the authority of the court to grant his client additional facilities in jail. “We are not begging from administration but demanding our rights in accordance with the Constitution,” he said, adding Talpur had been holding different offices and she was also a member of Sindh Assembly. He also prayed the court to grant a transit remand to Talpur so that she could attend Sindh Assembly session.

The NAB prosecutor objected to the request and pleaded that there was a different mechanism for transit remand and the accused couldn’t file an application in the court in this regard. The speaker used to issue orders for this purpose which was enough for the authority concerned, he said and argued that this request was also non-maintainable.