The Accountability Court hearing the Nandipur power project corruption reference against former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, former Law Minister Babar Awan and others on Tuesday deferred the announcement of its verdict with respect to Awan's acquittal application till May 6.
The Accountability Court Judge Muhammad Arshad observed that the court will announce its judgement on Awan's application seeking acquittal in the Nandipur power project case on May 6 because it wants to announce verdict on all applications filed by other accused persons simultaneously. The judge further said that other accused have also filed acquittal applications; therefore, the court after hearing the arguments of other accused will announce its verdict. The court then adjourned the hearing till May 6.
The $329 million Nandipur Power Project had been approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) in December 2007. After its approval, the contract had been signed in January 2008 between Northern Power Generation Company Limited (NPGCL) and Dong Fang Electric Corporation (DEC), China, and two consortiums - COFACE for 68.967 million euros and SINOSURE for $150.151 million.
In 2008, the Ministry of Water and Power had approached the Ministry of Law to issue legal opinion but the accused in connivance with each other and with mala fide intentions repeatedly refused to give opinion on flimsy grounds.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Water and Power also failed to take any concrete measures to resolve the issue and the matter remained pending. The legal opinion had been issued in November 2011 and the delay caused a loss of Rs 27 billion.
Other accused including Dr Riaz Mahmood and Shumaila Mahmood also filed acquittal applications before the court.
The anti-graft body had filed the reference against Ashraf, Awan and others including Muhammad Masood Chishti, former secretary law, Riaz Kiyani, former secretary law, Shumaila Mahmood, former research consultant at Ministry of Law & Justice, Dr Riaz Mahmood, former senior joint secretary law, and Shahid Rafi, former secretary water & power, on September 4 last year.
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