LAHORE, March 1: An accountability court on Saturday rejected the application of the wife of former excise collector, seeking her premature acquittal in a NAB reference.
Both Rukhsana Bhatti and her husband Shaukat Ali Bhatti were arraigned as accused in this corruption reference, accusing them of amassing illegal wealth.
The court also dismissed the application of Shaukat Ali Bhatti, requesting the court to stay the proceedings owing to the his current negotiations with the NAB authorities for a plea bargain. He had pleaded that since negotiations were likely to prove meaningful, further proceedings in the case could affect the progress of a plea bargain.
The court, however dismissed his application on grounds that there was no provision in the NAB Ordinance, prescribing that proceedings of a trial could be stayed by the trial court after the accused had entered into a plea bargain. The NAB did not give any hint of striking a successful plea bargain with the accused nor did it agree to his request for the stay of proceedings, observed the court.
“It would be against the norms of the natural justice to stay the proceedings on account of a plea bargain whose ultimate outcome is not known to both the accused and the prosecution,” observed the court.
Rukhsana Bhatti’s application for her premature acquittal was turned down for want of conviction and legal force. She had pleaded her premature acquittal under Section 265-K CrPC, saying the prosecution did not bring any incriminating evidence against her on the record.
According to the accused, she had been implicated in the reference merely on the basis of suspicion by the prosecution without taking into account the facts.
She argued that she had family resources to lead a respectable, and a comfortable life and the prosecution had arraigned her in the reference along with her husband with malafide intentions. The court while dismissing the application observed that the prosecution had claimed to carry out thorough investigation against the accused and collected evidence which was yet to be perused during the trial. The release of the accused at this stage would be premature without the examination of prosecution evidence which could only be made by way of a trial, observed the court. Further proceedings would resume on the next hearing.