KARACHI, Feb 17: An anti-corruption court on Thursday dismissed the bail applications of the detained chairman and four other officials of the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) in a land scam case. NICL chairman Ayaz Khan Niazi, executive director (finance) Mohammad Zahoor, general manager (audit) Ather Naqvi, general manager (real estate) Zahid Hussain and general manager (law) Ijaz Ahmed Sheikh along with their absconding accomplices have been charged with violating rules in the procurement of 10 acres in a Korangi area which caused huge financial losses to the national exchequer.

The judge of the special federal anti-corruption court-II, Karachi, Shaukat Ali Memon, dismissed the pleas after hearing arguments from both sides.

Earlier, the defence lawyers contended that the applicants were innocent and falsely booked by the Federal Investigation Agency and pleaded for their bail.

However, public prosecutor Malik Mumtaz-ul-Hassan opposed the bail applications and argued that sufficient evidence was available against the applicants in order to link them with the alleged offence.

According to the prosecution, secretary of the ministry of commerce Zafar Mehmood sent a written complaint to the FIA on Nov 16, 2010 in which he requested them to probe all purchases of land at various places and on different times by the NICL and further requested to register a separate case regarding the prima facie embezzlement of NICL funds in the transaction of 10 acres purchased in August 2009 in a Korangi area against the amount of Rs90 million per acre, which allegedly caused huge losses to the exchequer.

The chairman, board of directors, investment committee of the NICL, sellers, valuators and others with the connivance of each other committed offences of criminal breach of trust, misconduct, forgery and cheating, it added.

The FIA placed two members of the board of directors (NICL) Amin Qasim Dada and Javed Saeed and four private persons — including Khalid Anwar Khan, Khawaja Akbar Butt, Syed Mohammad Iqbal and Amir Hussian — as absconders in the interim charge-sheet.

The court directed the FIA to submit a final charge-sheet on Feb 26.

A case (FIR 21/10) was registered under Sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonesty inducing delivery of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-II, 1947 at the FIA Commercial Bank Circle, Karachi.