LAHORE, July 19: An accountability court reserved its judgment till Saturday (today) on the arrest of two directors and a manager of the Khyber Tractors (pvt) Limited over an alleged embezzlement of Rs84 million.

Dawn learnt on Friday directors Asif Sharif and Khalid Sharif, along with the development manager Hamdard Khalid, pleaded before the court they had been wrongly implicated in the reference since they had no involvement in the scam. The accused contended the company was not in a position to make payments to the government as result of withdrawal of tax exemption on foreign-made tractors under SRO number 388.

They also pleaded the government policies forced the company to default in payments to its buyers who had made the down payments since customs department refused to release these tractors to the company. They contended the NAB should recover the tractors from customs department which could later be sold off to make payments to the buyers.

The prosecution said it had unearthed Hammad’s involvement in operating different bank accounts for misappropriating the amounts deposited by the tractor applicants. It was contended the Hammad’s physical remand was required for interrogation regarding such bank accounts.

It is alleged Messrs Khyber Tractors advertized booking of Ursus 2,312 tractors in a local press with a quoted price of Rs230,000 each. An advance payment of Rs70,000 was demanded from the applicants while the balance was to be paid in instalments.

According to the investigations, some 1,430 people applied for the delivery and amount of Rs275,319,322 was deposited with the account of company.

The NAB alleged, more than 740 applicants, who booked the tractors, were not given any delivery nor their advance payment of Rs84 million was reimbursed.