KARACHI: An accountability court indicted on Wednesday a secretary and eight other officials in a reference pertaining to illegal allotment of land.

Secretary for the land utilisation department of Sindh Aftab Ahmed Memon, former mukhtiarkar Salik Nukrich, tapedar Abdul Aziz, sub-registrar Shahid Raza Shah and others have been charged with allegedly misusing their authority and illegally allotting over 1,700 acres of land in Malir district, causing a loss of around Rs3 billion to the national exchequer.

Accountability Court-V judge Fareed Anwar Qazi read out the charges against the accused persons. However, they pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the charges.

The court summoned the prosecution witnesses with the direction to record their evidence on Nov 11.

According to the reference, the nominated revenue officials had illegally facilitated fake ownership of 100 acres land in favour of private accused by allegedly making bogus entries in the record in 1998. However, after a comprehensive inquiry then deputy commissioner of Malir Younus Dagha had cancelled the counterfeit entries in 1999.

It further maintained that in Sept 2014, then member of land utilisation Aftab Memon through an order had set aside the cancellation order of 1999 and also directed that an alternative land of equal price be provided if the land was not available at the site.

NAB further submitted that Mr Memon was not the appropriate authority to set aside the DC’s order, adding that the land utilisation secretary passed another order in Sept 2016 regarding the exchange of alternative land for the private accused and issued a directive to the Malir DC for its implementation. Subsequently, 1,729 acres were allotted in lieu of 100 acres worth around Rs3bn, it added.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2017