An National Accountability Bureau (NAB) court on Wednesday ordered that a medical board be created for PPP leader and member of Sindh Assembly Sharjeel Inam Memon, who remains in police custody while investigators probe a corruption case against him and 11 others.

The board will comprise a neurologist and a neurophysician among other specialists and has been tasked with determining if Memon can be treated at the Karachi Central Jail's own hospital or not.

Memon's lawyer said he had no objections to the selection of any doctor to be on the medical board, but maintained that Memon cannot be treated at the jail's medical facility.

The NAB's prosecutor, on the other hand, objected to the formation of a medical board and said Memon is not suffering from any life threatening illness.

The court has ordered the board to determine if Memon's ailment is life threatening or not. He has also given the health secretary till December 16 to submit a reply regarding the medical services available at the jail's medical facility.

The ATC judge said contempt of court proceedings will commence against the health secretary if he fails to submit his reply on time.

Corrupt practices

On October 1, NAB had filed a reference against Memon and others for their involvement in the award of contracts for the Sindh government’s awareness campaigns to electronic media. The former minister is accused of misappropriating funds of more than Rs5 billion.

The reference said NAB had investigated corruption and corrupt practices in the award of contracts for advertisement awareness campaigns run on TV and FM channels between July 2013 and June 2015. It was found that the accused had acted in connivance with each other, resulting in a loss of Rs3,279,177,029 to the national exchequer.

It was firtjer revealed in the investigation that an amount of Rs5,766,479,766 was paid to seven advertisement companies in violation of the Sindh Public Procurement Rules 2010.