HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad accountability court on Tuesday sentenced a contractor to six years’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs4.7 million on him after he was found guilty of embezzlement in the budget of a school in Dadu district.

While the contractor, Mohammad Hanif Janwari, was convicted, an education officer, Mohammad Ibrahim Leghari, was acquitted in the case.

Mr Leghari had the powers of drawing and disbursing officer (DDO).

One of the accused, Aftab Mallah, has since died and a co-accused had opted for plea bargain in the case.

According to the NAB reference against the accused, an amount of Rs47,051,682 meant for school-specific budget of 2011-12 was embezzled by way of fake bills. NAB established that nine government officers/officials and contractors in connivance with each other had prepared the fake bills and withdrew the amount. Four of the accused paid back the liability through ‘voluntary return’ under Section 25(a) of National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

Convict Janwari was operator of M/s Royal Trending Company, Dadu, and had delivered stationery items/material which were found substandard and short in number/quantity as against the quotations and bills. He had also submitted an application for voluntary return and deposited Rs2.4m but failed to pay the remaining amount of Rs4.6m.

Money-laundering case

On Monday, the accountability court remanded Iqbal Z. Ahmed, a businessman, into judicial custody in a money-laundering case.

Ahmed’s counsel Farooq H. Naek submitted in court that the investigation officer of the case had already completed investigation. He stated that his client was sick and needed to be admitted to a hospital but he could not be moved without the court’s permission.

The court remanded the accused into judicial custody after which Mr Ahmed was admitted to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), Karachi.

The court had first remanded him into NAB custody on Sept 18 after his arrest.

Ahmed is currently facing charges of money laundering. A NAB reference against him alleged that he was involved in laundering of billions of rupees through the bank accounts of his companies including JJVL, Associated Group, Lube Gas Ltd etc.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2019