- Calls allegations false, frivolous, concocted, politically motivated
- Asks to provide inquiry report immediately
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has submitted a written response to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) pertaining to the Al-Qadir Trust Case, terming all the allegations made by the graft watchdog in the call-up notice as “absolutely false, frivolous and concocted and based on deliberate misconception of law and facts, and baseless conjectures and surmises”.
In a 20-point written response, Imran Khan said that it was not possible for him to appear in person before NAB Rawalpindi and join the investigation as he was in Lahore and in the process of obtaining bail in a multitude of cases.
Imran Khan, in his five-page response, said that no case of corruption or corrupt practice was made rather the entire object of initiating the Inquiry and Investigation in the case was politically motivated and, to say the least, is based on facts extraneous to law.
The PTI Chairman stated that the inquiry report regarding the allegations did not provide his hitherto.
It was stated that at the time of enquiry, he only received notice of summons, which did not include any details of the allegations made in the inquiry.
Imran Khan stated that he had only received on call up notice during the entire inquiry. He also added that he had challenged the notices sent earlier by NAB in the same and other cases as per law.
Khan also told NAB that as per it laws it was bound to copy of the report of inquiry immediately if it was converted into an investigation to him for defence which it did not do so.
However, he pleaded: “On the contrary, it was through a news report by Mr. Ansar Abbasi published in daily ‘The News’ of 30th April, 2023, that I came to know of the completion of Inquiry and its conversion into Investigation.”
The PTI Chairman stated that due to the NAB’s failure, he had decided to approach the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to seek a copy of the report.
“Thus, on May 09, 2023, I was sitting in the biometric branch of the IHC for getting my biometrics verified for the purpose of filing, inter alia, the said Writ Petition, when you maneuvered my arrest in a manner that blatantly violated, inter alia, my fundamental right to access to justice, which is a component of my fundamental right to life, and thereby not only prevented me from getting my Writ Petition numbered after it had been diarised, you were also instrumental in my abduction from the High Court premises,” he added.
The PTI Chairman further stated: “From the facts and circumstance narrated hereinabove it is abundantly clear that not only you had violated the provision of law by not providing me a copy of the Inquiry report as mandated by the proviso to Section 18(c) of NAO, 1999.”
Therefore, he requested that before serving him a notice, a copy of the said Inquiry report should be immediately forwarded to him at his address at Zaman Park, or, it should be furnished to his legal counsel in Islamabad, Gohar Ali Khan.
Imran Khan said the NAB call-up notice was ‘illegal’ and as per the record no “corrupt practices” were unearthed and the motive behind turning inquiry into the investigation was to victimize him politically.
