KARACHI: An accountability court on Wednesday allowed an application seeking provision of better class facilities to former federal minister Senator Kamran Michael of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

Mr Michael along with a businessman has been booked and arrested by the National Accountability Bureau for allegedly misusing his official authority as ports and shipping minister and taking bribes of millions of rupees for the allotment of three plots in the Karachi Port Trust Officers Cooperative Housing Society.

On Wednesday, Advocate Malik Mohammad Arshad filed power of attorney on behalf of the detained PML-N leader and also moved an application under Section 63 of the Criminal Procedure Code, mentioning that the suspect was a sitting senator and he was entitled to provision of better facilities in prison.

He said that his client was not provided the same facilities and requested the court to direct the prison chief to allow ‘B’ class to the undertrial politician.

After hearing arguments from the prosecutor, the Accountability Court-II headed by Judge Aaliya Latif Unnar allowed the application, directing the prison chief to provide ‘B’ class facilities to him.

Meanwhile, NAB’s investigating officer Jawad Hasan moved an application under Section 344 of the CrPC requesting the court to allow him time to submit a supplementary investigation report in the case since the matter of Mr Michael had to be investigated separately from an identical reference already pending in court.

The application is likely to be taken up on March 6.

NAB alleged that during an inquiry into the illegal allotment of the land belonging to the KPTOCHS it had transpired that during his tenure as minister for ports and shipping, Mr Michael had illegally allotted three residential and commercial plots against a bribe.

He further mentioned that Mr Michael had received millions of rupees in bribes for issuing allotment orders in violation of the laws through his frontman Imran Ali, who is a businessman. The money was received through transactions made through the bank account of his frontman, the IO alleged, claiming that NAB had collected the evidence to prove its case.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2019