KARACHI: An anti-corruption court on Wednesday granted interim pre-arrest bail to provincial secretary for local government Roshan Ali Shaikh in a corruption case till Jan 20.

The court also remanded assistant executive engineer of the Karachi Development Authority Zaheer Abbas to prison in the same case as the Anti-Corruption Establis­hment had arrested him on Jan 7 on the charges of misappropriation of funds meant for development schemes of the Karachi Metro­politan Corporation (KMC) through forged tendering.

The local government secretary through his lawyer moved an application seeking pre-arrest bail and after a preliminary hearing judge of special provincial anti-corruption court Naushaba Qazi granted him interim bail against a surety bond of Rs50,000 till Jan 20 and issued a notice to the Anti-Corruption Establishment for arguments at next hearing.

ACE investigating officer Ayaz Qaimkhani produced the detained assistant executive engineer before the court for remand and he was sent on judicial remand.

According to the ACE, the suspects have been allegedly involved in the embezzlement of funds of 10 development schemes of the KMC as they awarded tenders to the blue-eyed contractors without fulfilling the procedure,

while payments were also made in violation of rules and regulations. It further maintained that the work permits of these schemes were also not found.

The case was lodged under sections 161 (public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration in respect of an official act), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 at the ACE police station.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2020