KARACHI: An accountability court on Thursday convicted four accused, including a former deputy commissioner and a mukhtiarkar, of illegally transferring around 200 plots of government land to private real estate agents on forged documents.

The convicts — Karamuddin Panhyar, the then assistant commissioner of Mirpur Sakro, Gadda Hussain, the then mukhtiarkar of Mirpur Sakro along with private persons Ghulam Rasool and Jahangir Khan Marri — were found guilty of illegally transferring state land worth Rs60 million by making forged entries to rights of land with the connivance of each other.

On Thursday, accountability court-I Judge Rashida Asad pronounced her judgement reserved earlier after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge mentioned in the judgement that the prosecution had proved its charges against the four accused on the counts of misusing their official authority, indulging in corruption, corrupt practices being government officials and benefiting from it and cheating the public being private persons.

Therefore, the judge sentenced former assistant commissioner Karamuddin Panhyar and former mukhtiarkar Gadda Hussain to seven years in jail and also imposed a fine of Rs100,000 each.

On default, they would undergo an additional imprisonment for three months.

The judge also convicted private accused Ghulam Rasool and Jahangir Khan Marri, both real estate agents, and sentenced them to imprisonment for a period they had already spent in custody since their arrest in Oct 2017.

However, they were told to pay Rs50,000 fine each or undergo additional 30-day imprisonment.

The case against alleged absconding accused Ahmed Waqar was kept on dormant file till his arrest or surrender.

According to the prosecution, the private persons with the connivance of the then assistant commissioner and the then mukhtiarkar had got prepared fake documents on rights during reconstruction of records of government land in Gharo, district Thatta.

The prosecution further claimed that after getting the land illegally transferred in their name the real estate agents sold the same to Irfan Hilal fraudulently against Rs4.5m on the pretext that this was private land.

However, both were arrested by the National Accountability Bureau after initiating an inquiry on the basis of information given by a source.

Both were arrested and booked in a reference along with the former assistant commissioner and the former mukhtiarkar.

The official record of the land was reconstructed as it was burnt during violent riots that broke out following assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Dec 27, 2007.

The convicts caused losses worth more than Rs60m to the national exchequer through their acts, it added.

The defence counsel denied the allegations and claimed their clients’ innocence and argued that the anti-graft watchdog “falsely” booked their clients in the present reference with mala fide intentions, and there was no evidence to connect their role with the commission of the alleged offences.

Later, the real estate agents returned the defrauded money of Rs4.5m to Irfan Hilal.

They also moved an application requesting the court to allow them plea bargain in the matter, but the same was dismissed as only the government officials could avail such legal remedy.

On the other hand, the prosecutor contended that all the accused were guilty of committing the offences, adding that the prosecution had successfully proved the same through undeniable evidence and pleaded to punish them strictly in accordance with the law.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2019