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KARACHI, Feb 28: Justice Maqbool Baqar of the Sindh High Court asked the Federal Investigation Agency and a builder to clarify whether he paid Rs25,000 as bribe to an assistant controller buildings of the Karachi Building Control Authority.
The FIA banking circle was asked to investigate how plaintiff Noman of Noman Builders obtained a fake bank receipt for payment of over Rs61,000 as regularisation charges to the KBCA.
The agency submitted a report based on the builder’s allegation that he paid Rs25,000 as bribe to assistant controller Rehan Khan.
It, however, recommended that since the case was beyond its purview, it should be referred to the National Accountability Bureau (Sindh) or the Anti-Corruption Establishment.
The KBCA counsel, Shahid Jamil Khan, produced a letter addressed by the builder to the authority. The letter said he was compelled to make the allegation due to harassment and undue pressure.
He disowned the allegation and the court asked the builder and the agency to explain the matter.
The case relates to plot number 50, Bihar Muslim Cooperative Housing Society, on which the builder has raised a four-storey apartment complex instead of a two-storey bungalow.
PRIVATISATION: A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Faisal Arab, meanwhile, adjourned the hearing of two petitions against the Oil and Gas Development Corporation and the Sui Southern Gas Pipelines Limited to March 29 for comments by the respondents.
The petitioner shareholders have challenged the privatisation of the operations of the two public sector concerns. The petitioners submitted through Advocate Abdul Hafeez Pirzada that no privatisation could be done without the prior approval of the Council of Common Interests and the Privatisation Commission.
In the Liaquat National Hospital doctors’ case, the bench received a provincial health department inquiry report into the death of a journalist’s wife and new-born child in August 2006. Journalist Mohammad Kabir’s complaint against seven doctors was registered by police on the order of a session court.
The doctors have challenged the order for registration of a case against the doctors.
