ISLAMABAD, July 6: The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request for constituting a special bench to hear a bail plea of Asif Ali Zardari in the BMW car reference case.
Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui turned down the plea on the grounds that benches have already been constituted and working in the four registries of the country during the annual summer vacations of the Supreme Court.
A three-member SC bench, comprising Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Nawaz Abbasi, however, adjourned the case without giving the next date of hearing.
The chief justice also observed that one of the members of the bench had himself raised objection to his presence on the bench and has requested that he should not be included in the bench.
At the outset of the proceedings, Dr Babar Awan, the attorney of Mr Zardari, said that his client had no objection over the presence of Justice Nawaz Abbasi on the bench. However, the chief justice said that the case has again been fixed before this bench because of some fault as it was earlier decided that this case would not be fixed before any bench which included Justice Abbasi.
During the last date of hearing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had objected to the composition of the bench to hear the bail application as Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi as a judge of the Lahore High Court had passed an order in a similar matter against Mr Zardari.
The case was then referred to the chief justice for the constitution of a new bench. Mr Zardari is accused of importing a bullet-proof BMW of 1993 model from Sweden in the name of a student to evade millions of rupees in customs duty during the second term of prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The total evasion of customs duties was estimated to be Rs14.2 million.
