KARACHI, Aug 9: The Sindh High Court rejected on Friday bail applications of two co-accused in the Employees Old-Age Benefit Institute (EOBI)) corruption case involving Rs1.6 billion.

A division bench, comprising Justice Mohammed Roshan Essani and Justice Mohammed Mujeebullah Siddiqui, was seized with the bail pleas of Mohammed Zafar Iqbal, an employee of Republic Securities Ltd, a private financial institution, and Asif Dar.

The other accused are Shaikh Barkatullah, former chairman of the EOBI, Mohammed Salim, Deputy Director-General Investment of EOBI, Mohammed Tahir Siddiqui, General Manager of Prudential Commercial Bank, S. Samir Yousuf, Tafriq Siddiqui, M. Siddiq Shaikh, M. Saleem Patni, Humayun Sadiq, Syed Fahim Wasti, Haq Nawaz Akhtar, Syed Haider Javed Rizvi and Noman Ahmed Saeed.

According to the reference now pending before the accountability court-3 for Karachi division, accused Shaikh Barkatullah and Mohammed Tahir Siddiqui, in league with the other co-accused, dishonestly, fraudulently and deceitfully derived benefit of more than Rs1.6 billion.

According to the reference, the accused used three companies, Pak Industrial and Commercial Leasing Company, Prudential Discount and Guarantee House Ltd and Prudential Security Ltd, to siphon off the sale proceeds of EOBI shares through a company, RSL owned and controlled by Mohammed Tahir Siddiqui.

An interim reference (ER 16/2002) was first filed before an accountability court at Attock, and was later transferred to the AC-3 at Karachi (ER 20/2002).

When the bail applications came up for hearing, Abdul Ghafoor Manghi and Mehmood Alam Rizvi, advocates, representing the accused, submitted that one of the accused, Haq Nawaz Akhtar, had been enlarged on bail by the SHC.

Mr Rizvi, counsel for Zafar Iqbal, submitted that no final reference had been filed although investigation had been on since June this year.

He said his client was merely a salaried employee, not a holder of any public office.

After hearing the counsel for NAB, Naveed Rasool Mirza and Mohammed Ghani, the court rejected the bail pleas with reasons to be recorded later. — APP