LAHORE: An accountability court acquitted PML-N leader Hafiz Nauman in the Lahore Parking Company scam.
Accountability Court Judge Amjad Nazir Chaudhry while announcing a judgment which was earlier reserved acquitted Hafiz Nauman, Taseer Ahmad and Usman Qayyum. The court in its orders stated that as per the apex court if there is no evidence making of illegal assets, there is no case against a public office holder and civil servant. The court stated that it is clear that the misuse of authority by a person holding public office or by a person discharging official duties shall not constitute an offence, unless there is corroborative evidence of accumulation of any monetary benefit or asset. The court stated that in this case, even there is no allegation leveled by the prosecution against the accused regarding gaining of any monetary benefit, not to talk about production of evidence by the prosecution in this regard, the court questioned? The judge concluded that no offence of corruption, misuse of authority and corrupt practices as envisaged under Section 99 (a) (vi) of the NAO 1999, for which the accused are charge-sheeted, is made out against the accused persons facing trial and there is absolutely no possibility of conviction of the accused by any stretch of imagination, even whole the prosecution evidence is recorded. Thus the accused are acquitted. The NAB in this case had leveled allegations of misuse of authority against the accused but couldn’t prove that they made any illegal assets, which lead to acquittal of Hafiz Nauman and others. Meanwhile, the National Accountability Bureau through a press release stated that it will challenge the acquittal of all those accused in higher courts.
NAB sources anticipate that an accountability court is going to announce a judgment in the Saaf Pani Company case on April 25 in which Raja Qamarul Islam and others were nominated by the NAB.
