ISLAMABAD: The Sup­reme Court on Wednesday restored a 2011 petition of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Khawaja Mohammad Asif against allegations of corruption in the construction of 525-megawatt combined cycle power plant at Nandipur (Gujranwala).

The bench, which would take up the petition of Mr Asif again on Thursday, also issued notices to the Water and Power Development Autho­rity and Pakistan Electric Power Company. In 2013, the apex court on the petition appointed a one-man commission of retired Justice Rehmat Hussain Jafri on the Nandipur project.

In its 94-page report, the commission concluded that the national exchequer suffered a colossal loss of Rs113 billion due to negligence of the then federal law ministry for causing delay in giving necessary approval and completing documents for the execution of 950-megawatt power generation projects of Nandipur and Chichon-Ki-Malian.

In its report, the commission ruled that there was negligence on the part of the executive authorities of the federal law ministry, which caused the delay in completion of the projects.

A loss of more than Rs113 billion was caused to the national exchequer and the law ministry was responsible for causing delay in the completion of the documents, the report stated.

The report explained that Nandipur and Chichon-Ki-Malian projects could not take off due to the criminal negligence of the federal law ministry on frivolous technical grounds. It added that the law ministry did not clear the issuance of sovereign guarantee of the finance ministry to the contractor, resulting in the termination of work.

Dr Babar Awan, the then law minister, later told the Supreme Court bench headed by then CJP Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry that he was being persecuted by his political opponents.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2018