ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday disposed of a case moved to seek recovery of huge amounts of public money from former president Asif Ali Zardari, former president retired General Pervez Musharraf and former attorney general Malik Mohammad Qayyum because the funds were said to have gone to waste against the backdrop of the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), 2007.

A three-judge SC bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar that had taken up the petition of Advocate Feroz Shah Gilani, the president of Lawyers Foundation for Justice, disposed of the matter with the observation that details of the assets, properties and liabilities of Mr Zardari, Mr Musharraf and Mr Qayyum had been acquired and that the law would take its course as considerable progress had already been made.

At the last hearing on Nov 9, the court had wondered if a case could be reopened on a petition pertaining to Article 184(3) when the accused had already been acquitted of all money laundering charges.

Petitioner contended that promulgation of NRO had caused huge loss to exchequer

The court had observed then that because the matter was of a serious nature, the petitioner had to convince the court about maintainability of his petition by providing evidence against the accused; only then could the court proceed against those responsible for causing loss to the national exchequer.

During the hearing on Friday, Chief Justice Nisar also recalled that enough progress had been made in the Omni Group case or the fake accounts case.

In his petition, Mr Gilani contended that Mr Musharraf had subverted the Constitution by declaring emergency and then promulgated the NRO, thus arbitrarily withdrawing criminal and corruption cases against politicians, including Mr Zardari, which caused huge loss to the national exchequer.

Earlier, Mr Zardari had contended before the apex court that it had erroneously shifted the burden of proof to him, to prove his innocence. This was something that he had done time and again and even had been acquitted several times on merit.

The burden of proof actually remained with the party that had brought the case before the court, he contended and added that he had been acquitted in cases pertaining to the same subject matter. Agitating the same issue by attempting to gather evidence would be contrary to the principle of double jeopardy enshrined in Article 13 of the Constitution.

Mr Zardari had contended that Mr Gilani’s petition did not fall within the purview of Article 184(3) of the Constitution, adding that under Section 60 of the Elections Act, 2017, a candidate was only supposed to furnish a statement of assets and liabilities for the preceding year, whereas under the Aug 29 order, the affidavit to be supplied covered the period from Oct 5, 2007 till date, which was unheard of.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2019