KARACHI, Dec 20: The Supreme Court allowed bail to an accused in the hospital Zakat fund embezzlement case on Wednesday.

Dr Raza Ali Shah, former medical superintendent of the Civil Hospital Karachi, deputy superintendent Dr Allah Nawaz Kazi, Dr Javed Ali, a patients’ welfare officer, and Hakeem Akbar Dars, chairman of the Zakat Committee, District South, were detained and arraigned by the National Accountability Bureau for embezzling Rs2.9 million of the Zakat funds meant for poor patients who could not pay for their treatment or purchase of the prescribed medicines.

One of the accused, Dr Allah Nawaz Kazi, approached the Supreme Court through advocates Mohammad Ashraf Kazi and Sajid Munir Shah. The counsels maintained that accused Dr Kazi had no role to play in the disbursement of Zakat funds or purchase of medicines for poor patients at the hospital. Hakeem Dars was the chairman of the Zakat Committee who sanctioned the amounts while Medical Superintendent Dr Raza Ali Shah signed the cheques for purchase of medicines.

He has been implicated in the case without any evidence against him, the counsels said, and added that the accused would continue to attend the trial.