ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari requested the Supre­­me Court on Thursday to hear his plea from the week commencing Nov 17 in which he had sought clarification on a matter relating to fake bank accounts cases as its pendency since March was causing hardship to him.

The petitioner, through his counsel Senator Farooq H. Naek, also requested the apex court to set aside the Islamabad High Court’s (IHC) orders of Dec 28 last year and Feb 7 this year in which the court had held that the request to quash references made by the National Accountability Bureau regarding fake bank accounts could only be heard by the Supreme court’s implementation bench.

The implementation bench was constituted in response to a Jan 7, 2019, order of the apex court requiring NAB to file periodic reports to the bench.

The IHC had also observed that the high court should not proceed in the matter since any ambiguity, dispute or grievance with the proceedings initiated pursuant to the apex court judgement has to be dealt with by the implementation bench of the Supreme Court.

Consequently, the petitioner moved the apex court with a plea that the high court orders be set aside with a directive to IHC to hear the appeals pending before it.

The petitioner argued that the high court had the jurisdiction to take up the matter and there was no need for a hearing by the implementation bench.

The petition contended that the filing of any application or appeal before the implementation bench would take away the right of appeal, as provided under the law to accused persons, and would be a violation of Article 4 and Article 10A of the Constitution.

The petition contended that it was never the intention of the Jan 2019 Supreme Court that the appeals arising against accountability courts order should be filed with the implementation bench.

Article 10-A provides for free and fair trial, which includes the right to appeal and right to all remedies available before all forums, the petitioner argued.

So if every order passed by an accountability court is only assailable before implementation bench of the apex court, it would be in violation of Article 10-A.

The Jan 7, 2019, Supreme Court order had stated that the investigation by the JIT would be completed within two months and in case cognisable offences were made out, the recommendations contained available in the final synthesis report would be acted upon and a reference would be filed in an accountability court.

But without completing the investigation, NAB filed an interim reference, an action “for which there is no provision in NAB law”, the petition said.

Moreover, the reference was filed on June 12, 2019 after the lapse of two months granted by the Supreme Court.

The applicant was unaware as to whether any implementation bench was constituted by the apex court and whether any periodic reports were filed by NAB and whether the same were placed before the implementation bench.

In the light of Section 17 of NAO, the petitioner contended, provisions of the 1898 Code of Criminal Procedure are applicable to all the proceedings.

Therefore, the procedure stated in CrPC will be applied to all the applications, including the application under consideration filed by the presiding officer of the accountability court.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2022