‘Cleared for landing’

No immediate probability of Babar Ghauri’s arrest in Pakistan

Karachi: The reports submitted by three state institutions regarding the ongoing, pending and closed cases and inquiries against the MQM leader and former federal minister Babar Ghauri have removed all impediments to his return to the country.

The status of cases and inquiries shows that there is no immediate threat of Ghauri’s arrest on his return to the country. The issue of his return had come to the limelight when on December 15 Sindh High Court issued a warning to the federal government’s functionaries to file in the tabulated form details of all ongoing or pending and closed cases and inquiries against him or else federal interior secretary be present in the court to explain the cause of not doing so.

Ghauri filed the petition seeking details through his attorney, Alicia Adeel Wali, before coming to Pakistan via UAE in June this year. Upon arrival, he was detained in connection with a case register for listening to an alleged hate speech of his leader in 2016. However, on July 13, he left the country after being granted bail. The report filed by the Inspector General (IG) of Sindh Police shows that seven of eight cases against Ghauri in the decade of 1990s were closed in 2007, while a police request for closing another case is still pending in the trial court.

The report filed on behalf of the federal interior secretary shows that a case registered against him for listening to a hate speech was transferred to Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Islamabad from ATC Karachi. However, further proceedings in the case were stayed by the apex court.

According to another report filed by Special Prosecutor NAB, three inquiries are under process against Ghauri while an accountability reference against him is pending trial. One inquiry pertains to the alleged allotment of 40 industrial plots within the limits of Port Qasim. Ghauri allegedly allotted plots in fake names and sold them for heavy amounts. The files of these plots went missing from the record of the Port Qasim Authority. Since the files were missing, the inquiry was never converted into a NAB reference in six years.

Another inquiry pertains to illegal appointments while another is about the accumulation of assets beyond known sources of income. Regarding impleading him as an accused/absconder in accountability reference No 22 of 2018, Ghauri had submitted that he left Pakistan on March 15, 2015, to receive medical treatment, whereas the aforementioned reference was filed in 2018, which is related to the regularisation of contractual employees and pending adjudication before Accountability Court II at Karachi. The aforementioned reference is currently pending trial. He claimed that a bench of SHC had on December 14, 2020, declared the regularisation to be legal and lawful.

Assets beyond means cases were taken away from NAB’s purview after the amendments made in the law by the PMLN-led coalition. On November 22, an accountability court of Islamabad returned, without giving its verdict on the acquittal plea, a reference filed against federal finance minister Ishaq Dar declaring that the same no more fell within its ambit after the amendment in the NAB law.

In a recently submitted report to the apex court, the accountability watchdog had confirmed that dozens of politicians of various political parties, including their heads, benefited from the amendment in NAB law, while according to a report submitted to Lahore High Court NAB after the amendment had closed an assets beyond means inquiry against federal interior minister Rana Sanaullah.

Chances are that the assets beyond means inquiry against Ghauri will either be closed by the NAB itself or if a reference is filed it will be returned by the trial court.

About the last inquiry that has the potential of being converted into an accountability reference, Ghauri had contended in his petition the NAB allegations were almost identical to those of reference No. 22/ 2018 wherein the SHC had granted bail to all his co-accused.

The bench headed by Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha rejected an oral request of Ghauri’s counsel for direction not to arrest him in any case about past inquiries observing that petition has served its purpose as per its prayer clause and the court cannot go beyond it.

In the wake of the revival of limited political activities of MQM founder Altaf Hussian loyalists in urban Sindh, the developments in the petition had attained importance. A visit to Pakistan by Ghauri, considered close to both the country’s establishment and Altaf, had also sparked speculation about some sort of patch-up permitting Altaf to lead his loyalist in urban Sindh. It is also worth mentioning that a petition challenging the ban on Altaf’s audio and video speeches and publishing of his statement in the press is pending in the Sindh High Court while another petition on issuing him a national identity card and passport is also pending in Islamabad High Court.