LAHORE: Former railways minister Khwaja Saad Rafiq and his brother former provincial minister Khwaja Salman Rafiq on Monday moved the Lahore High Court for bail in Paragon City case.

The Khwaja brothers filed their bail petitions through Advocate Amjad Pervaiz pleading that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) implicated them in the case without any ground.

They said they extended full cooperation to the NAB during the investigation and furnished all documents to prove that they had no link to the Paragon City Housing Society. However, they said the NAB arrested them on political grounds.

The petitioners said they had been sent to jail on judicial remand and there was no cogent reason to keep them behind bars. They asked the court to grant them post-arrest bail.

The NAB had arrested the Khwaja brothers on Dec 11, 2018, after the LHC had withdrawn the relief of pre-arrest bail they enjoyed for almost three months. An accountability court had sent them on judicial remand on Feb 2 last.

The NAB alleged that Saad Rafiq through his “benamidar” wife Ghazala and in connivance with his brother Salman, former MPA Qaiser Amin Butt and Nadeem Zia established a housing project in the name of Air Avenue.

It said the project was later converted into a new housing project namely Paragon City Pvt Ltd. The Paragon City was an illegal society and not approved by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA), it added.

It further alleged that the suspects along with other accomplices cheated public at large and obtained illegal financial benefits from the funds of the illegal society. It said the former railways minister had been and was continuously receiving monitory benefits from the housing project as he obtained 40-kanal land in his own name and in the name of his brother.

It said Saad received Rs100 million approximately from the Executive Builders (proxy set-up of Paragon City) in bank accounts of M/s Saadain Associates and M/s KSR Associates.

DISMISSED: A Lahore High Court division bench on Monday dismissed bail petition of Lahore Parking Company (LPC) former head Mian Nauman in a case of alleged misappropriation in the company’s funds.

The NAB alleged that Nauman, also a former MPA of the PML-N, was the first chairman of the parking company when it was established in 2013. It alleged that Nauman and other suspects were guilty of causing a loss of over Rs1 billion to the national exchequer.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2019