Similar judgements in SGS, Cotecna cases

Transparency seeks CJ’s suo moto on inquiry closure 

ISLAMABAD: Transparency International Pakistan has approached the Chief Justice of Pakistan with the request to take suo moto action against the closure of an inquiry into scandalous judgments of two different Accountability Courts’ judges in three high profile corruption cases, including SGS and Cotecna.

In its letter written to Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali on Monday, the TIP expressed its surprise that how the inquiry already initiated on the orders of the Lahore High Court could be closed for the mere reason that the judges who had authored the controversial judgments had retired.

The TIP demanded, “The Honorable Chief Justice is requested to take up this case of great national importance under his Zero tolerance against corruption.” The TIP added that it looks to be an illogical decision of LHC to close the cases, when the allegations have been proved. The TIP letter said that it had examined The News report, and also confirmed that former President Asif Ali Zardari had been facing five corruption references filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in 1997-98.

According to the Transparency, the NAB in response to the acquittal pleas of Zardari, had produced before the AC three court judgments carrying  identical text in paragraph after paragraph and anomalies in separate cases acquitting all the co-accused of the former president in the corruption references. Zardari got a clean chit in three cases, while two corruption references, pertaining to the award of pre-shipment contracts, namely SGS and Cotecna were still pending. Zardari, through his lawyer Farooq H Naek, has also filed applications for acquittal in these two cases and these were taken up on December 17, 2014.

The TIP hoped that this issue involving high profile corruption cases will not be ignored by the CJP otherwise, it is feared that it may set a wrong precedent.

The TIP in its letter had referred to The News story of June 1, 2016 which had revealed that the Lahore High Court’s inquiry into the scandalous judgments of two different accountability (Ehtesab) court judges in three high profile corruption cases, including the SGS, has been closed because of the retirement of the concerned judges.

According to The News story, 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 both the judgments concluded the same way but surprisingly contained innumerable similar words, expressions and even paras. In the academic term, this may be considered as a perfect case of plagiarism.

Similarities apart, the two judgments on 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 and signed by Judge Mian Altaf Hussain Mahar whereas the Cotecna case judgment was issued by Accountability Court No III and signed by Judge Jahandar Khan Banth.

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 judgments were surprising and unbelievable despite the fact that these two references remained separate even from the very beginning.