PTI President Parvez Elahi has been remanded for 14-day by a Lahore district court after rejecting the Anti-Corruption Establishment’s (ACE) plea for his physical remand.
The case against Elahi was related to illegal recruitments in the Punjab Assembly.
He was presented before the court amid tight security after being re-arrested on Saturday.
The ACE alleged that Elahi recruited 12 Grade-17 officers in the Punjab Assembly without following merit-based procedures.
According to the ACE spokesperson, evidence has been collected, and the Secretary of the Punjab Assembly, Rai Mumtaz Hussain, has been arrested in connection with the case.
The ACE sought Elahi’s physical remand for further investigation, forensic analysis of his mobile phone, recovery of alleged bribery of Rs15 million, and retrieval of forged documents.
The court, in its written order, stated that even if the allegations in the FIR are considered true, it is noteworthy that the recruited candidates are still working in the Assembly Secretariat, and no action has been taken against them, except for the complainant in this case.
The court observed that other aggrieved persons did not approach the ACE or file complaints regarding tampering of their results.
The court further noted that the prosecution did not provide evidence of tampering by the accused persons, and the accused were not signatories of the final results or the forged documents.
It also questioned the jurisdiction of the ACE to investigate the case but allowed the proceedings to continue.
The court concluded that the physical remand request was not justified, and Elahi and the other accused persons should be produced in court on June 18.
