An accountability court will indict former railways minister Khwaja Saad Rafiq and his brother Khwaja Salman Rafiq in Paragon City scam on September 04 as National Accountability Bureau (NAB) failed to provide readable copies of the reference to them. On previous hearing, the court had delayed the indictment due to absence of Khwaja Saad as he was in Islamabad to attend a joint session of the parliament. The court had expressed serious dismay over the absence and questioned the practice of issuing production orders of under trial parliamentarians by the speaker without permission of the court concerned.

Earlier the suspects were present in the court and the prosecution was ready for framing charges on them but defence counsel told the court that the copies of the reference and related documents supplied to the suspects were not readable. He said the court could not indict the suspects unless readable copies of the case documents were provided to the suspects by the NAB.

At this the court directed a prosecutor to supply clear documents of the reference to the suspects without any delay. The court regretted that the indictment of the suspects had been delayed for the last month on one pretext or other.

The NAB alleged that the Khwaja brothers through their "benamidars" and with the abetment of former MPA Qaiser Amin Butt and Nadeem Zia established a housing project. The NAB alleged that the suspects along with other accomplices cheated public at large and obtained illegal financial benefits from the funds of the illegal society.

Khwaja Saad commenting on the performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government said the first year of the government rewarded the nation with hollow promises, vindictive actions, incapability, unemployment and inflation.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019