LAHORE, Oct 30: An accountability court on Wednesday remanded for another two weeks Seth Nisar and co-accused Shaukat Ali Bhatti into NAB custody in a Rs1.5 billion corruption reference.

Allowing the application of the NAB seeking extension for the custody of Seth Nisar and a former CBR collector Shaukat Ali Bhatti, the court directed that the bureau to utilize the period for ‘meaningful’ investigations. It cautioned that in future the custody of the accused would be extended against concrete reasons only.

The court ruled that the NAB should collect incriminating evidence against the accused during the investigations instead of seeking extension in their remand after the lapse of previous one without justifiable grounds.

Earlier, the NAB counsel pleaded that according to the investigations Seth Nisar had sold the raw material to different people which he had allegedly imported without paying duty on it.

The prosecution submitted that it had to trace those beneficiaries and record their statements for which an extension in the physical remand was required.

The defence counsel pleaded that physical remand could only be extended in case the NAB had to recover a document or any other material from the custody of the accused.

Seth Nisar argued before the court he was already cooperating with the NAB authorities and in his view there was no need for further extension in his physical remand.

The NAB has alleged that both the accused had been involved in the evasion of Rs1.5 billion customs duty on steel raw material imported by Seth Nisar.

As alleged by the NAB, Seth Nisar incorporated Irfan Seamless Pipe Company in 1992 to manufacture steel pipes. Later, he got imported a special kind of steel, bearing the specifications of HS 7207-1900, after furnishing a fake report to the customs authorities since no manufacturing of pipes was being carried out at the factory.

The NAB alleged that co-accused Shaukat Ali Bhatti, while being posted as customs collector in Lahore in 1992, was asked by the department to submit a report regarding the permission sought by Seth Nisar to import steel raw material for his bogus company.

The accused allegedly prepared a fake report showing mis-statement of facts after which the import was allowed and Rs1.5 billion duty was further evaded by the importer with the connivance of Mr Bhatti.

In another reference, Shaukat Ali Bhatti is facing charges of amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income in abuse of his official position.