HYDERABAD: Accountability Court-I Hyderabad has acquitted 12 suspects in Hyderabad-Sukkur Motorway (M6) land scam case and disposed of their applications.

According to the judgement announced, which was on June 15 but its certified copy was obtained on Tuesday, counsels for the suspects argued that no evidence was found during against their clients and they were not further required by National Accountability Bureau.

The suspects included Niaz Ali Ujan, Shafi Ahmed Soomro, Aziz Ansari, Sajjad Ahmed Memon, Rustam Khoso, Ghulam Haqqani Sahito, Aftab Ahmed, Abdul Ghaffar, Tanveer Ali and Siraj Ahmed Memon.

NAB’s special prosecutor conceded before the judge, Naseem Akhtar, that no evidence came on record against the suspects though they were cited as accused in interim challan by Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Hyderabad.

Later on, he said, when the investigation was transferred to NAB authorities their names were not excluded. He prayed that he had no objection if the suspects were acquitted under section 265-K Cr.PC as there was no evidence against them.

The judge noted that it was also mentioned in the NAB’s report that as per directive of Supreme Court, the NAB could not exclude the name of any accused from a reference which was transferred to the bureau under section 16-A of National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) 1999.

He said that it was sole prerogative of trial court to exclude/discharge any accused from the reference under trial before a court of competent jurisdiction. Therefore, wrote the judge, in view of the above facts and circumstances she was of the opinion that since no evidence had come on record against the accused they were acquitted under section 265-K Cr.PC.

The NAB had filed Rs5.8bn reference in July 2023 regarding land scam in Matiari and Naushahro Feroz sections of M6 Hyderabad-Sukkur Motorway against 19 accused, in all. The land scam was detected in October-November 2022.

According to the NAB reference, during investigation, it emerged that private persons involved in embezzlement of funds of M6 project were the same in Matiari and Naushahro Feroze. The funds were released by NHA to acquire land for the motorway project.

The accused had embezzled Rs5.8bn in both the districts.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2025