Prosecution in the Asghar Khan case has come to be seen as an acid test for the transparency of electoral process and thus the sanctity of democratic project in the country. The honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan has said it is determined to bring the case to its logical conclusion.
On Monday, the Federal Investigation Agency again requested the court to close the case. It said the politicians accused of receiving money for their campaigns in 1990 general elections had denied the charge.
Air Marshal Asghar Khan had filed the case in 1996, alleging that then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan and two senior army officers had distributed Rs140 million among several politicians to help them rig the 1990 polls to defeat Benazir Bhutto whose government had been sacked by the president on allegations, among other things of corruption and maladministration.
Earlier in 1994, former interior minister Maj-Gen Naseerullah Babar had claimed that the loyalties of several politicians were purchased for the formation of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad with the single purpose of defeating Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party.
Pakistan Muslim League, National Peoples Party and Jamaat-i-Islami were part of the nine-party alliance that won the 1990 elections following which Nawaz Sharif was elected prime minister.
On October 19, 2012, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the then chief justice of Pakistan, had issued a 141-page verdict ordering action against those involved in the matter.
The apex court had noted that an election was apparently stolen using the Rs140 million. The FIA was directed to initiate a transparent investigation and prosecute the guilty if sufficient evidence was found against any of the suspects.
Last year, the FIA had recommended that the case be closed on account of lack of evidence. It said the banks involved had not provided the details needed to pin the crime on the suspects and that some of the potential witnesses, including some journalists, had not turned up to record their statements. The court had then observed that an investigation and prosecution need not depend on confessions by the guilty parties.
The case was then adjourned with a direction to the FIA to do its job. Considering a successful prosecution can reveal the way elections are engineered and political alliances are made, its importance is immense.
Those assigned the investigation might have their reasons for shying away from it but the people of Pakistani deserve to know the facts. Making an example of those who stole an election will do our fledgling democracy a world of good. *