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KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday restored around 10 corruption references against several former officials and directed the accountability courts to proceed with the cases expeditiously.
A two-judge constitutional bench headed by Justice Muhammad Saleem Jessar passed the order on 15 petitions filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) challenging the transfer of the graft cases against former Sindh chief secretary Siddique Memon, former Karachi Port Trust chairman retired Vice Admiral Ahmed Hayat, former National Bank of Pakistan president Ali Raza, businessman Iqbal Z. Ahmed and others to the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) and other forums by accountability courts.
The accountability courts had allowed applications of several accused persons for transfer of the references against them to ordinary courts and forums other than NAB for want of pecuniary limits defined under Section 5 and monetary gains defined under Section 9(a)(vi) of the amended National Accountability Ordinance (NAO).
The bench ruled that if NAB had implemented the impugned orders and sent the references for trial before anti-corruption courts or other forums, it must file applications before such courts or forums and get these references returned to the accountability courts.
Orders accountability courts to expedite trials in now restored corruption references
After hearing the parties concerned and examining the record, the bench in its order observed that the controversy involved in these petitions related to the trial of the cases by accountability courts after the NAO was amended in 2022 and its retrospective implementation affected the cases pending trial.
About the NAB case filed against former CS Memon and others in 2018 for allegedly regularising six acres of government land and causing a loss of Rs551.76 million to the exchequer, the bench noted that the trial court had given the benefit of the amended NAO to the accused without rendering its findings as to how such provisions applied to the cases where the question of transfer of government land to private persons through forgery was involved.
“The revenue officials are trustees of public property and in case they fraudulently settle the accounts with private persons and transfer the government lands in favour of any entity through forgery, they commit an offence of criminal breach of trust punishable under section 409 of Pakistan Penal Code, and an offence defined under Section 9(a)(iii) of NAO,” the bench stated in its order.
Regarding the misuse of official authority case against former KPT chairman Ahmed Hayat and others that alleged caused a loss of Rs21.45 billion to the national kitty, the bench noted that the trial court sent the reference to the FIA on the ground that the employees of KPT were not fall in the category of “public servant”.
However, the bench ruled that the trustee and officers of KPT were public servants and holders of public office and in the present case accused officials of KPT were guilty of misuse of authority and criminal breach of trust defined under Section 9 (a)(iii) thus triable by an accountability court.
“However, accused can claim the benefit of Section 4 of NAO, wherein the decisions of board of trustees have been excluded from the operation of NAO,” it added.
The SHC also restored the reference against former NBP president Ali Raza and others regarding misuse of authority in acquisition of core banking application causing a loss of US$ 27.9 million to the exchequer, noting that it also came within the ambit of the criminal breach of trust, an offence punishable under Section 9(a)(iii) of NAO, therefore, the plea for absence of personal monetary gains was not material. of trust, an offence punishable under Section 9(a)(iii) of NAO, therefore, the plea for absence of personal monetary gains was not material.
The SHC also restored references against industrialist Iqbal Z. Ahmed, a former Karachi city government official Iftikhar Qaimkhani, builder Javed Iqbal, Rahim Bux and others.
Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2026
