ISLAMABAD: An accountability court hearing corruption reference against Finance Minister Ishaq Dar again rejected on Thursday his request to grant exemption from personal appearance because of ill health.

At the same time the trial court also declined to entertain another request on the part of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to issue a non-bailable arrest warrant for the accused and maintained its Oct 30 direction of bailable arrest warrants.

Mr Dar is facing a corruption reference for amassing assets and pecuniary interests / resources in his own name or in the name of his dependants of an approximate amount of Rs831.678 million, which were disproportionate to his known sources of income for which he could not reasonably account for.

The reference against Mr Dar was instituted in line with the July 28 Supreme Court judgement in the Panama Papers case, the trial on which the accountability court is required to complete within six months.

Orders verification of medical reports, disallows utilisation of money from frozen bank accounts

The accountability court also ordered the verification of the medical reports presented on behalf of Mr Dar as well as dismissed another plea to allow utilisation of Rs600,000 on a monthly basis for his personal use from bank accounts frozen by NAB on court directions.

Advocate Ayesha Hamid, who represented Mr Dar before the court in place of senior counsel Khawaja Haris Ahmed, told the court that her client was still in London as he was suffering from cardiac problems and could not even stand on his feet for four minutes.

Only his doctors who had advised Mr Dar to opt for angiography procedure could tell when he would be coming back to Pakistan. The angiography is scheduled to be done on Nov 3.

On the other hand NAB prosecutor Imran Shafeeq questioned the medical report, which according to him was prepared by some private hospital and had not been submitted before the court in accordance with the normal court procedure.

The prosecutor was of the view that such reports should have been furnished before the court through the Foreign Office which should have been dispatched from the High Commission of Pakistan in London.

He argued that the medical report did not suggest any disease highlighting that angiography can be done in Pakistan like it was done in the case of Qandeel Baloch murder case where the angiography of Maulana Qawi was done locally.

The prosecutor also sought permission from the court to commence procedure for freezing of assets of Mr Dar situated outside the country.

However, Ayesha Hamid reminded the court that the assets being highlighted by NAB were in the United Arab Emirates and beyond the jurisdiction of the accountability court.

Mr Dar’s counsel also argued that only one bank account out of a total of four accounts were in his client’s use having a credit of Rs20 million which was used for personal expenditures only.

Whereas the bank account in the Habib Bank Ltd Q Block was used for the official purposes in which payments from the Accountant General Pakistan Revenues and the State Bank of Pakistan arrive. She stated that Mr Dar bears all expenses of foreign visits on his own.

She regretted that NAB had frozen certain properties which Mr Dar had already disposed of.

Meanwhile, President of the National Bank of Pakistan Saeed Ahmed has already become an approver against Mr Dar in the case and has already recorded his testimony against the sitting minister before NAB.

In his statement Mr Ahmed had alleged that Ishaq Dar opened five foreign accounts in Lahore banks without his prior approval on stolen identity cards and forged signatures.

The accountability court will take up the case again on Nov 8.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2017