From Abid Usman
LAHORE: A Lahore district court on Sunday sent PTI President Parvez Elahi on 14-day judicial remand, rejecting the An-ti-Corruption Establishment request for his physical remand in a case pertaining to illegal recruitments in the Punjab Assembly.
Elahi was presented before the court today by ACE officials amid tight security after he was re-arrested for the second time in two days on Saturday. However, he was taken away by ACE officials after the court reserved its decision on the the authority’s plea for his 14-day physical remand.
According to an ACE spokesperson, the case of the illegal appointments alleges that Elahi recruited 12 Grade-17 offic-ers in the Punjab Assembly against merit.
“He got changed the results of these candidates belonging to Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin. We have collected evi-dence and also arrested Secretary Punjab Assembly Rai Mumtaz Hussain in this regard,” he told media.
In its short written order, the court observed that the ACE sought Elahi’s 14-day physical remand “for completion of the investigation and recovery as the accused persons are specially nominated in the FIR (first information report)”.
According to the order, the court was told that Elahi’s mobile phone was needed for forensic analysis and “bribery of Rs15 million is to be recovered from his possession, which he had taken being speaker of the [Punjab] Assembly for appointments on grade-17 posts. “Moreover the forged documents are also to be recovered from his possession.”
The court further observed that perusal of the record “reveals that even if the whole FIR be treated as gospel of truth, it is mentioned there that the departmental selection committee presided over by the present accused, Parvez Elahi, on Aug 9, 2021 committed forgery with written exams, declared successful candidates failed and for ulterior motives, recruited the failed candidates in BS-17 in the Assembly Secretariat and caused colossal loss to the government ex-chequer”.
