While rejecting prosecution’s request seeking physical remand of PTI President and former Punjab chief minister Parvez Elahi,77 years, in two cases implicating in illegal appointments Tuesday a judicial magistrate of Lahore district sent the accused to Adiala Jail Rawalpindi on judicial remand.
Judicial Magistrate Imran Abid announced the verdict reserved earlier during course of the day after hearing brief arguments of prosecutor and defence counsel in the matter.
First Information Reports (FIRs) refers Parvez Elahi made as many as 12 illegal recruitments in the Punjab Assembly for grade 17 slots and appointed Muhammad Khan Bhatti as his principal secretary in sheer violation of law of the land.
Punjab’s Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) produced Elahi before the magistrate upon completion of one-day transitory remand where the ACE prosecutor urged the court to grant a 14-day physical remand of Elahi for recovery in the case. However, the Judge didn’t agree with the prosecution stance.
A day ago , Elahi had found himself embroiled in yet another case, as he will now be headed to Lahore with the Punjab’s ACE following an approval of their request seeking his transitory remand. After an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) ordered to send him to jail on judicial remand in the case pertaining to the attack on the Federal Judicial Complex (FJC), the Punjab ACE stepped in seeking the senior politician’s remand in a new case filed in Lahore for misusing his power and position to shuffle provincial bureaucracy. According to an FIR, Elahi has been implicated under Section 5/2(d)47 of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) for illicitly misusing his position and power as the then chief minister of Punjab and transferring Muhammad Khan Bhatti, an employee in a special department of the Punjab Assembly, to a principal secretary. The ATC judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain approved the Punjab ACE application to issue Elahi’s one-day transitory remand after reserving its verdict in the wake of arguments presented by the anti-graft department.
