ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court (SC) has maintained that insincere
attitutde of government, defiance of court’s orders on its part is
beyond comprehension and preventing investigation officer from doing
his job is flagrant violaiton of court decision.
The SC gave
these remarks during the course of hearing of NICL case here Wednesday.
A 3-member bench of SC presided over by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP)
Iftikhar Muhamamd Chaudhry and comprising Justice Amir Hani Muslim and
Justice Ghulam Rabbani took up the case for hearing.
Court said
Zafar Qureshi and his team would investigate the case. Court made it
clear on Zafar Qureshi that he should complete the investigation of
this case before his retirement. "No one should remain under any
delusion that Zafar Qureshi would retire but he would complete its
investigation before his retirement", SC observed.
Babar Awan
told the court that he was present in the court being counsel for
Moonis Elahi. He raised the point that Zafar Qureshi had stated before
the court he was facing life threat from Moonis Elahi therefore, he
remained no more impartial and we can not expect justice from him,
therefore, he be separated from the investigation.
CJP said this matter would be seen later. " Let us deal with the matter of Zafar Qureshi first of all", he remarked.
Director
General Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Tehsin Anwar Shah tendered
his resignation in the Supreme Court on Wednesday during the hearing of
the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) scam case, saying that he
cannot work under a junior.
During the hearing Director General
Federal Investigation Agency, offered to resign before the court for
being superseded by Zafar Qureshi saying that he could not work under
direction of an investigation officer.
The Chief Justice
advised DG FIA to complete the inquiry and said that if he really
wanted to resign then he should present his resignation to concern
authority not to the court. Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Mohammad
Chaudhry said that Shah should not threat the court with his move and
resign before the concerned authorities.
The members of
Qureshi’s team also appeared before the court on Wednesday. Assistant
Director FIA Khawaja Imad told the court that FIA Lahore Director asked
him not to allow Zaffar Qureshi to enter the office as he was
pressurized to stop investigator officer.
Imad also said that
he received bomb threat over phone and similar threat was given to him
when Moonis Elahi was presented in the office for investigation.
Senator
Babar Awan defence lawyer for NICL main accused Moonis Elahi said that
Zaffar Qureshi could not conduct unbiased inquiry. Awan told the court
that Zaffar Qureshi in past also stated that he was threatened by
Moonis Elahi.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhry advised
to provide all files of NICL case to Zafar Qureshi who is probing into
the case.The Chief Justice strictly said that if anyone in this case to
be pressured then he would hear the complaints in his chamber.
The Supreme court adjourned the hearing of NICL case indefinitely saying that the court would hear the case once in a month.
Furthermore,
CJ reprimanded Director FIA Lahore Waqar Haider saying he was creating
hurdles in the way of implementing the court’s orders.
The two
officials had been summoned by the court over the bomb scare in the FIA
office. Earlier on Tuesday, the court had ordered Shah to allow
officers from Qureshi’s team to rejoin the probe. Moreover, the court
had directed Shah to associate himself with the team to facilitate the
probe. Online
