In SGS-Cotecna cases: Azmat Commission turns blind eye to judiciary’s scandal

ISLAMABAD: The Broadsheet Commission, led by Justice (R) Azmat Saeed, has simply ignored the judiciary’s own scandal in which judgments in the SGS and Cotecna cases were copied by different accountability courts leading to the

acquittal in 2011 of all those co-accused with Asif Ali Zardari.

This issue not only relates to the allegedly serious misconduct of the judges involved but also pertains to the culmination of the cases, decided in favour of the co-accused of Zardari in a dubious manner when the PPP co-chairperson was the President of Pakistan.

While the Azmat Commission did raise the issue of Zardari’s acquittal by the accountability courts during the last PML-N government owing to the missing original record in these cases, there is no mention of how in 2011 the accountability court judges favoured Zardari’s co-accused. What is really surprising is that despite it being established that a serious wrong had been done, the concerned judges were allowed to retire not only without any punishment but with full pensionary benefits and the corruption cases, that were decided in a controversial manner, were never retried.

NAB, which also played a dubious role in deciding those cases in favour of Zardari’s co-accused, did not inform the Commission of this most unique of scandals in the history of the criminal justice system of Pakistan.

The Lahore High Court’s inquiry into the scandalous judgments of two difference accountability court judges in three high profile corruption cases had proved to be a serious wrong. The inquiry against the concerned judges was dropped only because they had reached the age of superannuation. This fact not only helped them go scot free but more seriously it also made the scandalous judgments “past and closed transactions” because no one has so far set aside the judgments for a retrial.

In a story published in this newspaper in 2016, the Registrar Lahore High Court had confirmed to The News that as per the rules, the inquiry had to be closed owing to the retirement of the accountability court judges who had authored the scandalous judgements.

It was The News that had unearthed the scandalous similarities and some other controversies relating to the judgements of the Rawalpindi accountability courts. Handed down by the accountability court No III of Rawalpindi in 2011, the Cotecna judgment was almost a replica of the SGS case order issued by the accountability court No II, Rawalpindi.

Not only did both judgments conclude in the same way but contained innumerable similar words, expressions and even paras. In the academic world, this would be considered as a perfect case of plagiarism.

Similarities apart, the two judgments in SGS case and Cotecna case were signed by two different judges of two different courts. The SGS judgment was issued by accountability court No II whereas the Cotecna case judgment was issued by the accountability court No III.

After The News broke the story, the matter was referred to the Lahore High Court. The Lahore High Court initiated an inquiry against the two accountability court judges after the LHC Inspection Team had endorsed The News’ September 2011 report.

The News report was referred to by the inspection team of the LHC, which found “impressions of déjà vu” in the two judgments following which the LHC had ordered a formal inquiry against the two judges.

However, during the course of the inquiry the two accountability court judges attained the age of retirement which resulted in the closure of the inquiry.

Although these retirements helped the two judges avoid facing a possible penalty, the controversial judgements have – more importantly-- not yet been set aside. NAB too had also avoided going into the appeal against these judgments.

The SGS case judgment was handed down on July 30, 2011, whereas the Cotecna case order was handed down on September 16, 2011. The similarities between the two judgements were surprising and unbelievable despite the fact that these two references had remained separate from the very beginning.

It is interesting to mention here that the ARY Gold reference and SGS reference cases’ judgments, authored by a judge of accountability court No II Rawalpindi and announced on July 30, 2011, had exposed some strange anomalies. The most conspicuous of these was the acceptance of former secretary finance and the then executive director WB as the prosecution witness in the SGS case while the same individual was declared by the same court in the ARY Gold reference as a proclaimed offender.