Court rejects plea to nullify Park Lane reference

An accountability court in Islamabad on Friday rejected a plea filed by former president Asif Ali Zardari to throw out the Park Lane reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The court also rejected another application filed with reference to the NAB’s powers to investigate the matter and announced that the accused would be indicted at the next hearing on Monday.

Azam Khan – the accountability court judge – announced his judgment on the two applications around noon after hearing the arguments of the two parties in the morning and said the Park Lane affairs fell within the NAB’s jurisdiction.

Earlier, the defence counsel, Farooq H Naek, argued that the anti-graft body could not file the reference as the matter pertained to financial laws, not NAB’s authority.

The orders were passed even though the defence told the court at the start of proceedings that they were withdrawing the two applications.

NAB Deputy Prosecutor General Sardar Muzaffar Abbasi argued that the accused was using delaying tactics for postponing indictment for the last month or so. The defence cannot withdraw the applications at this stage, he said and requested the court to indict the accused.

The former president, his sister Faryal Talpur and other accused face charges of corruption through fake bank accounts and embezzlement in the financial facility for Park Lane Private Limited and Parthenon (Pvt) Limited. The NAB alleged that the national exchequer suffered a loss of Rs3.77 billion because of the irregularities.