LAHORE: Several affectees of Eden Housing scam have approached the Lahore High Court seeking a direction for an accountability court to conclude trial of the suspects within 30 days and hand over plots to them.

Attiya Shahid Khan, Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad, Tabinda Malik and Omar Javed submitted in a joint petition that they along with over 11,000 other affectees have been cheated by the owners of the housing scheme.

They said the suspects failed to appear before the court despite having full knowledge of the proceedings. They said the trial court issued non-bailable arrest warrants of the suspects, including son-in-law of ex-CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry.

The petitioners asked the high court to order the trial court to decide the reference within 30 days as envisaged under section 16 (a) of National Accountability Ordinance 1999 and also order it to ensure provision of plots to all the affectees.

The suspects include Murtaza Amjad, son-in-law of the former chief justice, Dr Amjad, Mustafa Amjad and Anam Amjad.

According to NAB, the suspects collected Rs18.9bn from public through fraud and fled the country. In September 2018, FIA had arrested Murtaza Amjad in Dubai. However, he was set at liberty owing to unavailability of sufficient evidence against him. The properties owned by

Eden were worth Rs22bn.

Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2020