NA officials say committee formed by parliament completely legal
Ijaz Kakakhel Islamabad
The special committee formed by the National Assembly to probe the audio leaks on Thursday met here with Muhammad Aslam Bhutani in the chair and demanded bank details of Najam Saqib, son of former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar, from the Ministry of Finance and expressed displeasure after the latter failed to appear before the panel.
The committee decided to summon the son of former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar and others. Najam Saqib was summoned in the previous meeting also, why has he not reached, asked Bhootani. Chairman of the parliamentary body informed the committee that Najam Saqib was summoned in previous meeting, but he didn’t turn up. The committee issued another notice to Najam Saqib and others for appearing before the committee. The chairman of the committee said the NA panel was providing an opportunity to the former top judge’s son to explain his position on the matter.
The committee also directed the finance ministry to submit record of six months’ bank transactions of the concerned persons within 15 days.
Earlier this month, NA Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf set up a special committee to investigate the audio of ex-CJP Nisar’s son, wherein he can be allegedly heard selling a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ticket to a candidate of the Punjab Assembly. The leaked audio purportedly features two separate telephonic conversations between the former CJP’s son and Abuzar Chadhar, a PTI candidate from PP137 and Mian Uzair, a middleman between the two.
The NA panel led by Mohammad Aslam Bhootani and comprising Shahida Akhtar Ali, Muhammad Abubakar, Muhammad Barjees Tahir, Shaikh Rohale Asghar, Syed Hussain Tariq, Naz Baloch, and Khalid Hussain Magsi conducted the proceedings on the matter.
PML-N leader Birjees Tahir suggested that if the former CJP’s son does not appear despite summons, then the committee should decide in accordance with the law and Constitution.
