ISLAMABAD, June 16: The Supreme Court bench hearing the case about the multi-billion-rupee fraud in National Insurance Company Ltd (NICL) arraigned three top bureaucrats on contempt charges on Thursday.

Khushnood Lashari, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Establishment Division Secretary Abdul Rauf Chaudhry and Interior Secretary Qamar Zaman Chaudhry were notified of the charges for not rescinding the April 18 notification about the transfer to National Police Foundation (NPF) of Additional Director-General of FIA Capt (retd) Zafar Ahmed Qureshi, who was investigating the NICL scam.

The three-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Tariq Parvez and Justice Amir Hani Muslim, said the contempt notices had been issued under Section 17(1) of the Contempt of Court (Ordinance) of 2003 after it became apparent that the officers had willfully defied court orders by removing Mr Qureshi from the probe, hampering investigations into the scandal.

The indicted bureaucrats have been asked to file their replies on June 23, the next day of hearing.

On June 8, the court had reserved its verdict on the contempt charges against FIA director-general Malik Mohammad Iqbal who had been accused of interfering in judicial matters by removing Mr Qureshi from the investigations. The court had also provided the establishment and interior secretaries an opportunity to withdraw the April 18 notification.

Malik Iqbal had written a letter to the interior ministry on April 16, suggesting that an interim challan had been submitted and that considerable amounts had also been recovered in the case. Two days later, the cabinet division issued a notification for Mr Qureshi's transfer even though the investigations were still under way.

“We have noticed that the stand taken by the interior secretary and the establishment secretary in the court (at the last hearing) was unusual,” said the verdict announced on Thursday.

The order noted that when the court asked the interior secretary why a routine letter from the FIA chief was sent to the establishment secretary, the secretary could not offer any plausible explanation.

The court asked the establishment secretary why the matter was not brought to the notice of the competent authority — the prime minister — before the issuance of the notification.

The “two major factors” that became the basis for Mr Qureshi's transfer — the reported recovery of money and the submission of court challans in the case --- were not documented apart from a summary of April 20 for which neither the interior secretary nor the establishment secretary could offer any explanation, said the order.

The verbal communications about the recovery and the challans were denied by the FIA chief in his reply to a show-cause notice, the order said. The stance of the two senior officers was in conflict with the contents of the notification.

A summary moved by the establishment secretary on April 20 neither mentioned the verbal orders nor reasons for withdrawal of notification about the additional charge of Mr Qureshi, the order said.

Thus, the contents of the summary floated by the establishment secretary appeared to be an afterthought and an attempt to justify issuance of April 18 notification, the order said.

The April 18 notification, prima facie, was issued on the basis of the letter of the FIA chief to create grounds for dissociating Mr Qureshi from the investigations.

The director-general of FIA, the interior secretary, the establishment secretary and the principal secretary to the prime minister joined hands to create obstacles in the NICL investigations in defiance of the court's directives, the order said.