HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad circuit on Tuesday suspended the sentence of three persons convicted by an accountability court and ordered their release upon submission of a surety in a sum of Rs1.5 million each.

The applicants were former Umerkot additional district accounts officer Ashfaq Ahmed Shaikh and sub-accountants Gul Mohammad Palijo and Manzoor Shah.

They were represented by Ishrat Ali Lohar and Riazat Ali Sehar advocates in three separate references.

The accountability court had awarded five-year’ sentence to the accused for embezzling education department’s funds through fake bills against pension and benevolent fund as well as the bills of medicines’ supplies of the health department. The sentences were awarded on Jan 3.

Funds of varying amount between Rs4.5m and Rs10m were allegedly embezzled by the accused.

Riazat Ali Sehar contended before the court, comprising Justice Naimatullah Phulphoto and Justice Shamsuddin Abbasi, that while the references were filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the beneficiaries, who had withdrawn pension fraudulently, were not cited as accused in the references.

He said that similarly officers of education and health departments having authority of drawing funds and others concerned were also not named as accused.

Ishrat Ali Lohar argued that sentences were short term and relied on an apex court judgement in which Supreme Court had granted bails on the sole ground that sentence was short term. He pleaded that during the course of the trial, his client was also granted bail by the court and he regularly attended court proceedings.

He submitted that since disposal of a number of appeals would take time by the court through a final decision in the matter, therefore this sentence might be suspended. He said the then executive district officer (EDO) health was spared by the NAB.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2018