An accountability court in Lahore on Monday sent Ahad Cheema, former director general of Lahore Development Authority, to jail on a 15-day judicial remand.
NAB officials produced Cheema, the prime accused in the Ashiana Housing Scheme case, before the court following the completion of a three-day remand and sought physical remand of another 15-days, citing some new revelations of assets beyond his income.
The prosecution told ATC judge Najamul Hassan that a piece of land, measuring 21 Kanal and four marlas, was purchased in the name of Cheema's wife in Paragon. The worth of the land amounted to Rs70 million, the court was told.
The prosecution in the case also informed the court that Cheema had allegedly invested Rs40mn in Punjab College, Dera Ghazi Khan, besides purchasing flats in Islamabad. The counsel also claimed to have found some code words in the Cheema's laptop regarding some financial transactions.
The counsel for Cheema, however, argued that the prosecution found nothing substantial during the 90-days of investigations so they came up with a case of assets beyond income.
The court rejected the plea of further physical remand and sent Cheema to jail on a 15-day judicial remand.
During the same hearing, Shahid Shafiq, owner of a private company was also produced in the case. The court was told that NAB officials had completed their investigation, so the court sent Shafiq on a 15-day judicial remand.
The hearing of the case will resume after 15 days.
The NAB authorities had arrested six people — former LDA DG Ahad Khan Cheema, Bismillah Engineering Company owner Shahid Shafiq, Israr Saeed, Arif Majeed, PLDC’s former chief executive officer Imtiaz Haider and another PLDC official, Bilal Qudwai, for their alleged involvement in the housing scam.
Ahad Khan Cheema was arrested a few months ago on charges of misusing his authority and, with criminal intent, processing and awarding the Ashiana-i-lqbal project contract worth Rs14 billion to the Lahore CASA Developers, a joint venture firm which was ineligible for the same. The contract was awarded in violation of the law.
NAB inquiry further revealed that Bismillah Engineering Services Co (a major shareholder of JV titled Lahore CASA Developers) was a proxy firm working on behalf of Paragon City (Pvt) Ltd.
Cheema allegedly received illegal gratification in the form of 32 kanal (valuing Rs30.09 million approximately from the owners of Paragon City (Pvt) Ltd).
