ISLAMABAD: The authorities of National Bank of Pakistan refused to cash a personal cheque of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, NBP sources said.

Spokesman for President Zardari Farhatullah Babar said he was completely unaware of any such development.

According to sources, a personal check of Rs 99,000 of Chief Justice was returned by the bank’s Melody Branch, Islamabad, without any reason. The cheque was kept on hold for more than two weeks.

Regional Operations Manager of NBP in Islamabad Malik Hayat admitted that there was sufficient money in the relevant account and the cheque could have been paid. “I don’t’ know further details so I cannot comment on this,” Hayat said while confirming the unfortunate event of January 27, 2010.

According to NBP sources, following the bouncing of the check on Jan 27, junior staff of the SC considered it some mistake on the part of the bank official. However, sources say as the top NBP management was ordered by the highest office of the country, they continued to defy the requests from the SC officials. On February 12, 2010, the SC administration came into knowledge of the actual situation and high-level NBP management was asked to conduct immediate inquiry over this humiliating act and take appropriate action. Sources told our sources on Saturday that the bank management suspended three junior officials who had no link to the episode.

The officials suspended were Chief Manager Muhammad Irfan, Operation Manager Abdul Nasir and Deposit Manager Ibrahim. Chief Manager confirmed in no way he had any link with the process of cashing this cheque. Irfan insisted that his suspension on the issue was purely an official matter. He said that he will prove before the inquiry committee that he was not guilty.