LAHORE, May 7: The Punjab National Accountability Bureau on Monday filed a reference against former MNA Akhtar Vario, accusing him of having acquired assets worth Rs60.50 million disproportionate to his known sources of income.

The court fixed May 9th for the indictment of the accused after he was given the reference copies.

The NAB alleged that Mr Vario had abused his authority as an MNA and Sialkot district council chairman from 1979 to 1987 by acquiring the assets disproportionate to his known sources of income.

His assets include 1,167-kanal land in Sialkot and Gujrat districts, a 12-kanal bungalow worth Rs50 million on Mahmood Ghaznavi Road (Sialkot Cantonment), shares in Grace Hotel Lahore, shares worth Rs1 million at a shop in Sialkot’s Ghalla Mandi, a vehicle worth Rs0.779 million and a one-kanal house at Garden Town’s Ataturk Block.

He got constructed a farmhouse at Kala Harawan village out of funds earmarked for the construction of a community centre. He was also accused of having caused Rs1 million loss to the national exchequer through the grant of an illegal rebate on export tax. Besides, the accused never filed income tax and wealth tax return before 1994-95. After that, he wrongly declared his assets in the annual returns, the NAB alleged.

Vario was sentenced to three-year rigorous imprisonment in absentia by court last year under section 31-A of the NAB Ordinance, 1999, for wilfully absconding the trial proceedings. He was later arrested by the NAB, and the court sent him behind the bars to serve the sentence ahead of his trial.

He moved the high court against in absentia conviction, and it declared that the sentence served by him so far was sufficient and he was not required to undergo further imprisonment.