ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: A judge of the Supreme Court raised doubts on Tuesday about government’s intention and described the transfer of Rs62 billion belonging to the Universal Services Fund (USF) to the Federal Consolidated Fund (FCF) as a criminal misappropriation.

“Probably in a cautious language this is really something criminal misappropriation,” Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja said, adding that such acts when done by a government functionary always attracted Section 409 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The section dealing with the criminal breach of trust by a public servant, a banker or a merchant suggests imprisonment for life or up to ten years with fine as punishment.

Justice Khawaja is on a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry which took up a petition of Khurram Shehzad Chughtai, an IT expert, who had sought a court order for the government to complete the process of auctioning 3G spectrum licences on an urgent basis in a transparent manner and ensure early availability of the services.

Established in 2006, the USF was meant to be utilised exclusively for providing telecommunication services to people in under-served rural and remote areas of the country.

Justice Khawaja explained that only high officials would come in the net of Section 409 of the PPC when the court was informed that the USF was losing a profit of over Rs7 billion annually if calculated on 12 per cent interest rate.

“This is like a joke, a loot,” he said when a USF accountant informed the bench that before the transfer of funds under a memorandum of the finance ministry, the department used to invest the amount in profit-yielding government securities funds.

On Aug 1, the Ministry of Information Technology informed the court that Rs62bn USF money had lawfully been transferred to the FCF after making necessary changes in the USF Rules 2006. In its statement submitted to the court, the ministry said the amount was placed from the IT ministry’s USF account to the finance ministry’s FCF in pursuance of a decision by the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet.

Deputy Attorney General Imranul Haq and the director general (enforcement) of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority informed the court that the process of auctioning the 3G licence had started and seven international consultants submitted their bids for providing technical service for the auction.

Technical evaluation of the bids will be concluded by Thursday and financial bids will be opened on Saturday after which the final auction of the licence would be done. The spectrum being auctioned represents three blocks of 10Mhz each in the 2100Mhz band.