Raja Pervaiz Ashraf gets clean chit in another graft reference

Ag APP

ISLAMABAD: An accountability court on Tuesday acquitted former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, former finance minister Shaukat Tareen and six other accused in the Piraghaib rental power corruption reference.

AC-I Judge Muhammad Bashir announced the ruling which was reserved on the last hearing after the conclusion of arguments from both sides on acquittal plea of Ashraf and others.

The reference was filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Rawalpindi in 2014. The other accused who had been acquitted were Ismail Qureshi, Shahid Rafi, Shaukat Tareen, Tahir Basharat Cheema, Muhammad Saleem Arif, Chaudhary Abdul Qadeer and Iqbal Ali Shah.

The court had already acquitted Ashraf and other accused in the Sahiwal rental power reference last week. The court had said the NAB could not prove any corruption charges against the defendents. Other people named in the case, including Shaukat Tareen, former Pesco managing director Basharat Cheema and Shahid Rafique were among the acquitted.

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