LAHORE: An accountability court on Wednesday once again returned a reference of alleged corruption against former speaker of Punjab Assembly Sibtain Khan and others to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for placing it before a court of competent jurisdiction following the amendments in the law of the anti-corruption watchdog.

The reference was previously returned to the NAB in October 2022 as the accountability court lost jurisdiction to further proceed with the matter as per amendment in section 5 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.

A defence lawyer told the court that the NAB, after the amendment, could not prosecute an alleged offence involving money less than Rs500 million and the offence amount in the reference against the suspects was below the minimum value.

Later, the Supreme Court had suspended the amendments leading to reopening of the reference by the NAB.

However, finally the apex court reversed its decision and restored the amendments in the NAB law last month.

Accountability Court Judge Zubair Shahzad Kiyani allowed an application filed by Sibtain Khan and returned the reference to the NAB for its transfer to the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) in light of the amendments.

The NAB had alleged that Khan violated laws and awarded a multi-billion contract to a firm of his choice namely Earth Resource Private Limited (ERPL) during 2007 when he was provincial minister for mines and minerals in the PML-Q government.

The bureau stated that the company that was given the contract had a paid-up capital of Rs2.5 million only and also lacked the experience required for the project. It said the company was not even registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Khan signed the agreement ignoring the laws.

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2024