LAHORE, May 9: A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday dismissed a writ petition moved by PPP Secretary-General Jahangir Badr seeking production of the official record, observing that the request was aimed at buying a delay and frustrating the process of justice. The bench observed that “we have no doubt in our mind that the petitioner is trying to delay and prolong proceedings with the purpose of defeating the ends of justice, and these tactics cannot be encouraged”.

The PPP leader moved through Advocate Sardar Latif Khan Khosa, a writ petition contending that the local accountability court was proceeding in the reference against him without a material record. He submitted that the trial court was examining prosecution witnesses without calling for the official record from the Pakistan State Oil and the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, and that the court twice dismissed his plea to summon the record.

He submitted that the official record was already with the NAB court which made it the basis for trial.

The court remarked that it had found weight in the argument of the NAB’s deputy prosecutor-general that the writ petition had been filed with the objective of delaying and prolonging proceedings in the trial court as well as the high court. The NAB lawyer also stated that the petitioner had twice moved such an application before the trial court, and it was rejected on both occasions.

The NAB court, according to the deputy prosecutor, had almost concluded proceedings in the reference against Badr under which he was charged with unlawfully ordering the employment of about 100 PPP workers in the PSO and the SNGPL during the tenure he served as a federal minister in the first Benazir Bhutto government in 1988-89.