- ACE sought remand of Parvez Ilahi for 10 more days.
- His lawyer says that the Punjab government is registering fake cases against Ilahi.
- Lahore court rejected ACE’s petition and sent Ilahi on judicial remand.
LAHORE: A local court in Lahore on Monday approved the 14-day judicial remand of jailed Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Pervez Elahi in a case related to illegal appointments in the Punjab Assembly.
After completion of his two-day remand, Ilahi, who was lodged in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, was produced in the court of Judicial Magistrate Aamir Raza by the officials of the Anti-Corruption Establishment. However, the ACE requested the court to extend his physical remand by another 10 days to complete the investigation.
Elahi was arrested from outside his residence on June 1 in a Rs 70 million corruption case related to embezzlement of development funds allocated for Gujarat district. Since then, the former Punjab Chief Minister has been released several times only to be immediately arrested in various cases.
At the beginning of today’s proceedings, ACE’s counsel told the court that they have to recover the suspect’s mobile phone. The lawyer said that Rs 4.1 million had been recovered from Ilahi’s house, and said that the ACE was to investigate the matter.
On the other hand, Ilahi’s lawyer argued that the interim government was filing fake and baseless cases against his client. “The government is under [Elahi] arrest him and subject him to political persecution [again and again] In fake and baseless cases,” he said.
After hearing the arguments from both sides, the magistrate rejected ACE’s request and sent him to jail on 14-day judicial remand.
illegal recruitment case
According to details provided by the ACE spokesperson, Ilahi made 12 illegal recruitments on Grade 17 posts in the Punjab Assembly.
Candidates were recruited by altering the records in the Provincial Assembly. “The illegal recruitments were done through fake testing services,” the spokesperson said.
He said that the ACE investigation has proved that fake recruitments were done in Punjab Assembly, based on the evidence the anti-corruption sleuth has also arrested Secretary Rai Mumtaz Hussain in connection with this case.
“Rai was involved in the fake recruitment process along with Mumtaz Parvez Ilahi,” he said.
