Mehrangate: Supreme Court orders former inquiry reports to be made public

The Express Tribune News

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the former inquiry commission reports regarding Mehran Bank and Habib Bank to be made public in the Mehrangate scandal, reported Express News.

A written order will be passed to make the report public during the next hearing of the case, remarked Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry heading a three-member bench.

During today’s hearing of the case, the Supreme Court bench inquired from the attorney general regarding the unavailability of the report, to which the attorney general said that the interior secretary was out of the country.

The court asked the attorney general sarcastically whether the interior secretary carries the report in his pocket.

SC takes notice of The Express Tribune’s story

The Supreme Court took notice of a news story published in The Express Tribune on Wednesday (Misappropriation: Govt withdrew millions from Intelligence Bureau’s account) claiming that classified documents have revealed that the Pakistan Peoples Party withdrawing Rs270 million from the secret fund of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) – allegedly for pushing its political agenda in Punjab.

The chief justice, while remarking that The Express Tribune is a credible newspaper said that their news would not be inaccurate. He ordered the attorney general to contact the editor, publisher and reporter to assist the court with the hearing and provide the classified documents.

The hearing of the case was adjourned till March 30.

In the previous hearing, the chief justice had asked the attorney general to inquire from the federal government whether the reports were made public or not. If not, the reports should be made available for the court’s use in-camera, the chief justice had said.

The Mehrangate scandal emerged after the Supreme Court began the hearing of air marshal Asghar Khan’s 20-year-old petition in which he stated that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) rigged the 1990 elections by handing out money to several politicians.

Former chief of Mehran Bank Younis Habib appeared before the Supreme Court and had admitted of handing out Rs140 million to various politicians.