KARACHI, April 27: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday granted bail to Mrs Salma Ahmed, a former member of the National Assembly, who is being prosecuted by the National Accountability Bureau for misusing a loan of Rs 13.3 million advanced by the Export Promotion Bureau in 1994 for establishing a fashion design technology centre.

A division bench, comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Azizullah M Memon, admitted her to bail in the sum of Rs1 million in exercise of the court’s constitutional jurisdiction.

She was lodged at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases for treatment on court orders. The bench had earlier asked the petitioner’s counsel, Rasheed A. Razvi, and NAB Deputy Prosecutor-General Shaukat Hussain Zubedi to produce their respective records of accounts in respect of the project.

Submitting details of expenditure on behalf of the petitioner, Advocate Razvi said the project accounts were audited by the approved auditors, chartered accountants Owais Rizwan and Company, whose reports had been received by the EPB without any objection on record.

The EPB or the NAB had no case against the ex-MNA. The project was contracted out to her in her capacity as the chairperson of the Pakistan Association of Women entrepreneurs.

The NAB counsel submitted that the accused petitioner got a 603-square-yard plot allotted in KDA Scheme-5 at Clifton in 1987 for construction of a women’s complex.

The EPB sanctioned an amount of Rs 13.3 million for the design centre to be set up as part of the complex in 1994.

According to the record, a cheque for Rs 1.9 million was issued by the accused in favour of the KDA in 1994 for completion of a basement and ground floor on the plot.

The entire amount of Rs 13.3 million, the NAB counsel said, had been withdrawn by the accused, but no construction work was carried out on the project site after 1994.

A final show cause notice was issued by the EPB to the accused in 1997 but it failed to elicit any response. The incomplete structure had, meanwhile, been put to commercial use. An offence under the NAB Ordinance was found to have been committed by the ex-MNA, the counsel said.