PPP serves legal notice on PAC chief

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has served legal notice to Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Mr HU Beg, asking him to immediately withdraw ‘defamatory, scandalous and malicious’ remarks by him, failing which the party will “have no option, but to initiate criminal and civil proceedings against him”.

The legal notice, signed by Supreme Court Advocate Dr Babar Awan on behalf of his client Ms Naheed Khan, Benazir Bhutto’s political secretary, was delivered to Mr Beg’s on Saturday.

It was prompted by remarks and scathing criticism by the PAC chairman, accusing Ms Khan of misusing Bait-ul-Mal funds, widely reported in the national press on June 20.

“The allegations are totally baseless and are vehemently denied,” said the notice.

It said that during the 1996 government of Mr Farooq Leghari, a case was registered against Ms Khan, in which the court found that the allegations were ill founded. The notice said that even after a lapse of six years, no charges had been pressed against Ms Khan.

“You are hereby further informed,” the notice said, addressing Mr Beg, “that you have no right to comment on matters sub-judice or on matters decided by the courts.”

It also drew the PAC chairman’s attention to press reports that the state had withheld Rs 5 billion of Bait-ul-Mal funds from the poor, with the result that the rate of suicides in the country had increased to which “no one…is paying any heed”.“Your (Mr Beg’s) self-styled and imaginary allegations amount to criminal intimidation,” the notice said, adding that these were an offence punishable under the law. It warned Mr Beg that if he did not refrain from ‘political blackmailing’, legal action would be initiated against him.

It dismissed Mr Beg’s remarks at the press conference as ‘politically motivated’, and referred to Mr Beg as the head of an “unconstitutional and illegal ad hoc PAC, manifestly created to politically malign, harass and blackmail the opposition”.

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