SUKKUR: The Sukkur Accountability Court on Saturday convicted a deputy commissioner, three municipal administrators and four other officials in a corruption case. Three contractors named in the corruption reference were also convicted

Judge Fareed Anwar Qazi pronounced the judgement in the presence of the accused nominated in the reference (No. 2016/8). A total of 14 officials and private people were nominated in the reference and three of them had opted for a plea bargain.

The reference pertained to misappropriation of funds for development works released to the municipal corporation concerned.

The judge sentenced then deputy commissioner of Qambar-Shahdadkot Jawed Jagirani and 10 co-accused to seven years’ imprisonment and ordered them to pay fines of varying amounts. The collective amount of the fine comes to a little over Rs64.5 million.

According to the judgement, DC Jawed Jagirani will pay a fine of Rs0.7m, administrator Sardar Asif Arain Rs9m, administrator Ghulam Mustafa Hulio Rs2.7m, administrator Zamir Hussain Abro Rs1.3m, engineer Qurban Ali Abro Rs10.7m, sub-engineer Inayatullah Abro Rs3.4m, Ghulam Abbas Shaikh Rs15m and Tufail Aheer will pay a fine of Rs0.5m. Fine was also imposed on three contractors — Ghulam Qadir Bhutto (Rs6m), Ghulam Qadir Aheer (Rs0.6m) and Jahangir Channa (Rs1.5m).

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had carried out an investigation into the corruption allegations levelled against 14 accused in 2016 and filed the reference in the accountability court upon completion of the probe. Three of them were excluded from the reference after they contracted a plea bargain.

The convicted DC, administrators, officials and contractors were arrested as soon as the judgement was pronounced and sent to jail.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2021