KARACHI, Oct 25: Special Judge Anti-Corruption Karachi, Syed Gul Munir Shah, on Thursday directed officials of the Karachi master plan to produce the layout and land records of the New Sabzi Mandi in court on October 31.

The technical officer of the anti-corruption establishment was directed to appear in court in order to answer technical queries about the land scam case against various government officials.

The administrator of the market committee, Ghulam Nabi Chakrani, the secretary of the market committee, Saeed-ul-Hassan Zaidi, the director-general of the government of Sindh’s Agriculture Extension, Naeem Ahmed Korejo, and Ashiq Hussain, a section officer of the PMP Agriculture Department, government of Sindh, are facing charges in the land scam that involved millions of rupees.

The market committee officials, who were present in the court, had been granted interim bail by a link court of district and sessions judge Inam-ur-Rehman of the Labour Court on October 11. The period of their interim bail was also extended to October 31 on Thursday.

According to the prosecution, the case was registered on the basis of an inquiry into a complaint (No 249/07) of the anti-corruption establishment. The men are accused of having converted 164 amenity plots into shops. Under the Karachi master plan, these plots had been reserved for a fire station, a service station, a weighbridge and lavatories.

During the inquiry, a raid was conducted on July 19 on the office of the market committee in Gulshan-i-Iqbal and the relevant record was seized. It showed that the accused acted without the permission of the competent authority and in violation of the approved layout plan. According to the prosecution, the allottees of Block AF-1, which was created on amenity plots, and representatives of Nazir Khan, Gul Shah and Asmatullah appeared before the inquiry team and claimed that they had paid market committee administrator Ghulam Nabi Chakrani Rs7 million for the allotments.

Defence counsel Irfan Tirmizi argued that his clients had done nothing wrong since land allotment was the duty of a high-powered committee and the accused were merely signing authorities. He argued that no party had so far been given physical possession of the land and termed the case against the officials baseless. Mr Tirmizi said that it was the duty of the department concerned to take notice of any irregularities and added that the secretary agriculture should be contacted in this regard.

The court directed Investigation Officer Chaudhry Hamidullah to ensure the production of the required land record and maps at the next hearing.