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KARACHI, Jan 24: The judge of the accountability court-II, Sadiq Hussain Bhatti, on Thursday indicted a former superintendent of the Sindh police on the charges of corruption.
However, the accused, Chaudhry Nazar Mohammad, pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case. The judge has summoned the prosecution witnesses to appear before court to testify in the case on Feb 16, the next date of hearing.
According to the reference (No 9/2001) filed by the National Accountability Bureau, Sindh, the accused Chaudhry Nazar Mohammad, son of Miran Bux, who joined the Sindh police force as an assistant sub-inspector in 1959 and retired from services in 1988 as a superintendent of police. During his tenure in the police department, he had allegedly accumulated properties worth over Rs50 million, which were incompatible to his known legitimate sources of income.
The accused was convicted in absentia under the section of 31-A of NAB Ordinance, 1999, through a judgment on July 16, 2001. However, the accused surrendered himself before the Sindh High Court on June 14, 2005 and was granted a pre-arrest bail and the judgment of July16, 2001 was set aside with the direction to face a trial before the trial court. The accused appeared in a trial court on June 28, 2005 and all the properties of the accused was attached under section 88 (attachment of property of person absconding) of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Hearing put off
The same court adjourned the hearing of a reference against a former chief of the National Development and Finance Corporation (NDFC) and others till Jan 28 since the special prosecutor was on leave. On Jan 15, the court had indicted two co-accused in the case,
Sardruddin Ganji and Sajid Ahmed. They pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case.
The court had also issued warrants under Section 88 (attachment of property of person absconding) of the Criminal Procedure Code against the former NDFC chairman, M. B. Abbasi, Hasham Ganji and Saleem Dawood, who were declared absconders. Earlier, the investigation officer submitted a report to court under Section 87 (proclamation for person absconding) of the Criminal Procedure Code regarding the arrests of the absconders.
According to the reference (27/2003) filed by the National Accountability Bureau, Sindh, the NDFC had approved a financial facility of Rs40 million in favor of M/S West Pakistan Tanks Terminal (Pvt) Ltd as a trade finance facility in 1994. Subsequently, the facility was converted into working capital funds for the purchase of molasses to be exported abroad, and was disbursed in January 1995.
The accused, M. B. Abbasi, the then chairman of the NDFC, in league with the sponsors namely Sadruddin Ganji, his son Hasham Sarduddin Ganji, Dawood and Sajid Ali of M/S West Pakistan Tanks Terminal committed numerous procedural and processing irregularities, while granting the aforesaid financial facilities. The NDFC, itself made inquiries into the matter with the consultation of M/S Raza Kazim Associates. However, the NDFC had requested for a legal action since the loan amount was still outstanding, while an FIR (40/1997) was registered against the accused in July 1997.
