Staff Reporter
A spokesperson for Speaker Punjab Assembly Ch Pervaiz Elahi on Friday clarified the reports, which have appeared in the media regarding NAB probe against him when he was the Punjab Minister for Local Government way back in 1989.
In a statement issued on Friday, the spokesperson said that the probe against Ch Pervaiz Elahi was not a graft probe as wrongly depicted in the media and has been dropped due to lack of evidence.
He said that in fact the probe related to alleged few irregular appointments made in the Local Government Department during 1989 when he was the minister, these appointments were made on the recommendations of three MPAs with the approval of the then Chief Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, incidentally all the MPAs on whose recommendations these appointments were processed and approved by the competent authority are unfortunately no more alive, similarly the then Secretary Local Board who had initiated the case and the Secretary Local Government Department who had submitted the summaries are also not alive.
The spokesman further said that these appointments involved relaxation of relevant rules for which the Chief Minister was legally competent under the Punjab Business Rules, in view of these facts the NAB probe could at best be termed as misuse of authority or irregular appointments and not a graft case as such, misrepresentation of facts thus trying to tarnish one’s reputation needs to be corrected and rectified accordingly, hence this clarification.
