ISLAMABAD: After a gap of one month, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) allowed an accountability court to resume ex parte proceedings against defunct finance minister Ishaq Dar in the assets reference prepared on the direction of the Supreme Court.

An IHC division bench comprising Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb on Wednesday dismissed the petition filed by the defunct minister against the issuance of his proclamation and initiation of ex parte proceedings.

On Dec 20, 2017 the division bench had raised a number of questions over several orders passed by the accountability court conducting Mr Dar’s trial in connection with a NAB reference accusing him of amassing assets beyond his known sources of income.

The bench had also questioned if time prescribed under Section 87 of the Criminal Procedure Code — 30 days — for declaring a suspect a proclaimed offender could be curtailed to 10 days under Section 17(c) of the National Accoun­tability Ordinance of 1999 “in the absence of exceptional circumstances”.

Medical report doesn’t say defunct minister can’t travel, says Justice Minallah

The IHC had stayed the proceedings in the trial court till Jan 17.

The counsel for Mr Dar argued that the court instead of verifying the medical report of the defunct minister initiated ex parte proceedings against him after issuing his proclamation and non-bailable arrest warrants.

“Medical report doesn’t say that he can’t travel,” Justice Minallah remarked on the report dated Jan 11. “He [Dar] can travel, use air ambulance service besides excellent healthcare facilities are available here [in Pakistan],” he added. The counsel for the defunct minister said it was the right of his client to get examined and treated by the doctors of his choice. Justice Minallah said it seemed “he [Dar] doesn’t trust medical practitioners in Pakistan.” Subsequently, the court dismissed his petition.

In response to the order, the special prosecutor of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Imran Shafique, had on Monday submitted a detailed reply accusing Mr Dar of playing “hide and seek” with the accountability court. The NAB prosecutor said it was law that a proclaimed offender, absconder or fugitive from law could not be heard, even against an order of abscondence, unless he surrendered himself before the court of law.

He said it was also a settled law that a writ petition emerging from a criminal matter couldn’t be filed on the basis of attorney’s special power.

The NAB prosecutor said the petitioner was bound to disclose his bona fide but as it was miserably lacking in the instant matter, the petitioner was debarred from invoking the IHC jurisdiction. He said the court was constrained to pass the order for taking coercive measures against the accused and “with such contumacious conduct” he could not approach the IHC.

The prosecutor maintained that Mr Dar assailed numerous orders on different applications pertaining to different subjects in one go in a single writ petition though such exercise was not warranted under the law.

In response to the IHC’s questions, the NAB prosecutor raised two questions; whether the accused was able to make a case for exemption on the basis of medical ground and if the appointment of pleader in the case was possible and it was justified to allow the trial to continue “in self-imposed exile of the accused”.

NAB informed the court that Mr Dar had produced seven medical reports before the trial court and all medical reports, if put together, were not only inconsistent and contradictory, but were also sufficient to expose the mala fide of the “petitioner who in order to escape from the court, staged the drama of serious heart problem.”

In his order of Dec 11, 2017, Judge Bashir of the accountability court stated: “When all medical reports are kept together it seems that the reports of Ranjit Deshpande are procured with purpose to linger on the case/reference.”

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2018