KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has restrained the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from arresting five former officials named as accused in the Bahria Town Karachi land grab reference till March 5.

A two-judge constitutional bench of SHC comprising Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha and Justice Adnan-Ul-Karim Memon directed the petitioners to furnish solvent surety of Rs100,000 each and also issued notices to a federal law officer and the prosecutor of NAB for next hearing.

However, the bench said that the trial court must proceed against all the people named in the reference expeditiously in accordance with law.

The then secretary of land utilisation department, Mohammad Javed Hanif Khan, two former directors general of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) Manzoor Qadir and Agha Maqsood Abbas, ex-deputy commissioner (East) Kazi Jan Mohammad and the then director general of Malir Development Authority (MDA) Mohammad Sohail through their lawyers filed petitions in the SHC.

Citing NAB, the trial court and others as respondents, the petitioners submitted that they had been named as accused by NAB in a reference filed last week before an accountability court which had summoned them after taking cognizance of the matter.

The lawyers for petitioners argued that the reference was not maintainable under the NAB law and as such the petitioners had challenged the jurisdiction of the trial court.

The bench in its order said, “In the meantime, no arrest shall be made in respect of all the petitioners until the next date of hearing subject to furnishing their solvent surety in the amount of Rs100,000 each and PR bond in the like amount to the satisfaction of the nazir of this court. However, the accountability court shall proceed against all persons in the reference expeditiously in accordance with law”.

NAB claimed in the reference that the entire hierarchy of the executive, the revenue board and MDA had conspired to cede valuable public property to an individual for some gains and in active connivance grabbed 17,671.87 acres under the garb of adjustment/exchange/consolidation in 2013-14 in sheer violation of law for Bahria Town, causing a colossal loss of over Rs708.08 billion to the national exchequer.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2025