ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed a three-member Commission, formed for recovery of Rs 256 billion written-off bank loans from the year 1971 to onwards, to immediately proceed on the matter as it had already been delayed for a quite long time.
A three-Judge bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez on a suo motu case gave its nod to formation of a three-member Commission to be headed by a former Judge, justice retired Jamshaid Ali Khan.
Syed Iqbal Haider, counsel for State Bank of Pakistan, apprised the bench that a Commission was formed and its head retired judge of the apex Court had recommended names of Muhammad Akram and Ibrar Saeed Rozi as its members.
The bench however, rejected a request for making Tariq Iqbal, a chartered accountant of SBP, as a member of the Commission.
The bench observed that the head of Commission had the authority over its members.
Additional Attorney General Karim Khan Agha to bench's query replied that they had no reservation over the names as the authority for making nomination vested with the chairman.
The Chief Justice observed that the Commission should immediately proceed on the case which had been one of the biggest scam in country's history.
During previous proceedings, the Supreme Court was informed that Governor State Bank of Pakistan had agreed for issuance of new Circular to formalize scope of proceedings for the three-member Commission set up to scrutinize cases of written-off bank loans worth Rs 256 billion from 1971 to onward.
With the consent of all counsels, the bench in its order granted them time to jointly bring about a draft which could be agreeable to the Governor SBP paving way for issuance of a new Circular so that all cases of the alleged amount of written-off loans could be referred to the Commission in the light of these recommendations.
The apex Court has been seized with a suo motu notice from 2007 which it had taken on a news report that the then Musharraf's government had written off Rs 53.499 billion bank loans between 2002 and 2007.
The loans were given to influential people on the basis of a decision taken by the financial team of the former ruler in December 2002.
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