LAHORE: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal on Wednesday met the victims of the Eden Housing Society scam and assured them that the bureau would ensure a Rs20 billion plea bargain.

More than 150 people affected by the scam of the housing society owned by the late Dr Amjad gathered outside NAB’s Lahore office where the chairman was present to redress their grievances.

The NAB chairman called them at his office and listened to their concerns. He said the bureau had told Dr Amjad’s widow Anjum Amjad, who is now the main owner of the housing society, to agree on at least Rs20 billion plea bargain so that the affectees could be compensated properly,” a participant in the meeting told Dawn.

The chairman also said the other option for the bureau was that the accountability court would decide the matter if no agreement on the plea bargain was reached.

“Justice Iqbal also assured us that he would arrange a meeting between the affectees and Anjum Amjad in a week to settle the matter of plea bargain,” he said.

The protesters told the chairman that Anjum Amjad should be bound to pay at least Rs25bn in one year so that they could get the compensation money at the earliest.

Earlier, Anjum Amjad had requested the NAB to accept a plea bargain amounting to Rs16bn and give her three years for the payment.

An accountability court had extended the interim pre-arrest bail of Anjum with a direction to finalise her plea bargain with the NAB in a Rs25 billion scam by May 16.

Earlier, hundreds of affected people had gathered outside the accountability court last month when she arrived with her counsel on expiry of her pre-arrest bail. The victims protested against her and the bureau.

According to the NAB, there are more than 12,000 affectees of the housing scam unearthed in 2013. The suspects had collected over Rs25 billion from the public through fraud.

Meanwhile, All Eden Affectees president Umar Farooq said the NAB chairman promised them that he would ensure payment of Rs18 billion in one year but he (Farooq) had categorically told him that the affectees would not agree on anything less than Rs25 billion. He said the actual right of the people were plots but they could agree on the aforementioned amount (Rs25bn) because of more than a decade-long struggle.

He said the Eden Society had assets worth more than Rs50 billion and the DC rates of property at Gajjumatta had been revised from Rs400,000 to Rs800,000 per marla. Any amount less than Rs25 billion would be a grave injustice to the victims, he said.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2022