KARACHI: The administrative judge of the accountability courts on Tuesday admitted a reference against a former land utilisation secretary, Karachi commissioner and 14 others about alleged illegally leasing 265 acres of land.

The National Acco­untability Bureau (NAB) filed the reference against Ghulam Mustafa Phul, the then secretary of the land utilisation department (LUD), former Karachi administrators Fazlur Rehman and Roshan Ali Sheikh, then Karachi comm­issioner Shoukat Hussain Jokhio and others.

However, only three of the suspects — Muhammad Shoaib, Saif Abbas and Shoukat Hussain Jokhio — are in custody.

The administrative judge, Dr Sher Bano Karim, admitted the reference after hearing arguments from the prosecution and defence and transferred the matter to the Accountability Court-II for trial.

Arguing on the maintainability of the reference, Special Public Prosecutor Zahid Hussain Baladi argued that after the NAB chairman takes cognizance of an investigation the trial court could not return the reference and rather it was legally bound to frame charges against the nominated persons.

However, a defence counsel opposed the filing of the reference.

In the reference, it was mentioned that the suspects were involved in illegal sale of 265 acres situated at Deh Ghangiaro in Malir, Karachi.

The subject land was originally allotted to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation in 1960 for the purpose of setting up wool washing tanneries, but KMC officers illegally issued 276 leases for industrial purposes in connivance with a private person, Muhammad Shoaib, who was arrested by NAB and various official records were retrieved from his residence.

KMC directors who are among the suspects have been accused of issuing an authorisation letter for execution of leases in the area of the proposed wool washing tanneries to allow the officers concerned execute leases on behalf of the KMC despite knowing neither any allotment was issued nor any auction was held in respect of the subject lands.

The reference added that from 2007 onwards KMC’s five deputy directors had executed 276 lease deeds of the wool washing land to private persons for industrial purposes without any allotment order, purporting that they were lessee of the land by the virtue of an auction held by the KMC in 1971-75, wherein the KMC’s auction department had accepted only 16 plots which were allotted through auction at that time.

Three accounts officer were involved in signing and depositing the challans of the occupancy value against the approval of the director-land, thus creating a third party interest based on which leases will be executed, it added.

The administrator/district coordination officer (DCO) and board of revenue (BoR) officers acted in violation of Section 24-A of the Colonisation of Land Sindh Amendment Act, 2009.

The Karachi administrator/DCO malafidely and to give a legal cover to the act of KMC officials requested the secretary LUD to keep entry of the said land in favour of then city district government Karachi/KMC, the reference said, adding that the administrator/DCO also passed the Council Resolution in 2010 allowing the KMC officials to regularise the land based on the possession.

Based on the above request, the LUD secretary had after 50 years issued a no-objection certificate (NOC) to keep entry in the record of rights of the land, the reference stated, adding that the ex-post factor approval was sought wherein the finance secretary raised objections based on which an inquiry was initiated and same NOC for entry was withheld.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2018