KHANEWAL, Sept 24: The Multan Bench of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday stopped Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) from registering cases against 57 Citizen Community Boards (CCBs) of Khanewal district for allegedly embezzling Rs47 million in various development projects.

Petitioner CCBs, including Al-Kausar, Bara Meel and Rainbow, through counsel Rana Muhammad Asif Saeed, said DCO Qazi Muhammad Ashfaq and Community Development EDO Chaudhry Maqsood Ahmad’s action to initiate process of registration of corruption cases against 57 CCBs was illegal and unlawful.

They informed the court that the district administration could have initiated action through filing civil suits against the CCBs as per rules.

They said district council’s monitoring committee alone could monitor performance of CCBs and if the committee had not raised any complaint against any CCB, why the district administration took this action at its own.

The court summoned DCO, community development EDO and Multan ACE director to file their reply.

The district administration had started investigating the performance of CCBs about two months back and later through spot checking and physical verification, it was found that Rs30.5 million released to 39 CCBs for 43 projects were entirely embezzled as not even a single project was found executed on ground.

The projects include purchasing ambulances, milk chillers, laser levelers, establishing industrial homes, installing tube-wells, providing missing facilities at basic health units (BHUs) and furniture at schools and building culverts and constructing roads.

Moreover, 16 CCBs were found involved in partial embezzlement of Rs16.5 million in 17 projects of roads construction, tube-well installation, earth filling and milk chiller installation.

According to district administration’s report, Al-Kausar CCB of Jodhour Town, Kabirwala, misappropriated Rs5.4 million in two projects of constructing metallic roads while the Bara Meel and Rainbow CCBs allegedly embezzled Rs2.1 million and 1 million, respectively, in two projects.