KARACHI: An accountability court on Thursday sentenced four former officials of the Karachi Development Authority to seven years in jail in a case pertaining to corruption and china-cutting of plots meant for the Lines Area Redevelopment Project.

The accused, former director of land Atta Abbas, former directors Fareed Yousufani and Farid Naseem and former director finance Shahid Umar, were found guilty of illegally bifurcating land meant for redevelopment project into plots through china-cutting, selling them to the public without conducting an auction and causing losses to the exchequer worth millions of rupees.

On Thursday, Accountability Court-II judge Aaliya Latif Unnar pronounced her judgement reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge noted that the prosecution had successfully proved the charges against the accused persons, thus sentenced them to seven years in prison.

The judge also imposed a fine of Rs5 million on each convict.

In 2015, the National Accountability Bureau had filed a reference against the then KDA officials and private persons, who were beneficiaries of the scam.

Convicts found guilty of illegally bifurcating land meant for Lines Area Redevelopment Project

Special public prosecutor Farah Khan contended that the then officials of the KDA had moved a fake note sheet, which never existed in the official records, granting approval to carve out a major portion of the land meant for the redevelopment project into small plots through china-cutting.

She further contended that the officials then sold those plots to the private persons in an unlawful manner without conducting an auction, adding that the subject plots were also sold below the prevailing market value.

The prosecutor contended that the nominated officials had exceeded their lawful authority since their mandate was only to redevelop the land which was supposed to be a low-cost area, but they unlawfully and illegally sold it to private persons.

She informed the court that around 30 private persons nominated in the case as beneficiaries for having purchased those plots had already reached plea bargain deals with the NAB authorities.

She asked the court to punish them strictly in accordance with the law.

On other hand, the defence counsel for the accused persons argued that the allegations levelled against their clients were false since there was no sufficient evidence to connect their role with the commissioning of the alleged offence. Therefore, the defence had pleaded to acquit them of the charges.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2021