KARACHI: An accountability court on Thursday dismissed for not being maintainable an application for making the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman accused in a reference pertaining to a multimillion land scam.

Former commerce secretary Suleman Ghani, then chairman of the National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) Ayaz Khan Niazi along with four directors and some other senior officials of the company and private persons have been charged over their alleged involvement in the financial embezzlement of Rs900 million in the purchase of 10 acres of land at exorbitant rates in Korangi for the NICL in violation of procurement rules in Aug 2009.

Three accused persons moved the court and contended that the approval for the purchase of land and its price was accorded by the NICL board of directors, including the incumbent NAB chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry who was among the members of the NICL board of governors in 2009. They submitted that the Federal Investigation Agency made all members of the NICL board of governors accused except Mr Chaudhry since he was interior secretary when the case was being investigated.

But NAB deputy prosecutor Amjad Ali Shah opposed the application on the basis of some rulings handed down by the higher and superior judiciary.

After hearing arguments from both sides, judge of the accountability court-III Munawar Sultana turned down the application. While referring to a ruling of the high court, the trial court observed that the application was not maintainable since it had no jurisdiction to incorporate new persons in the list of accused.

In its order, the accountability court also cited a Supreme Court ruling handed down on a set of petitions filed in 2011. The apex court had ruled that “it would not be in the interest of justice, fair play, and equity to involve Mr Qamar-uz-Chaudhry, as there is absolutely no iota of evidence available on record connecting him with the commission of alleged offence”.

According to the prosecution, then commerce secretary Zafar Mehmood on an apex court directive sent a written complaint to the FIA on Nov 16, 2010 asking the FIA to probe all purchases of land at various places and on different times by the NICL.

A case was registered in 2010 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 Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act-II, 1947 at the FIA Commercial Bank Circle, Karachi.

Initially, the case had been filed in an anti-corruption court, but it was later in 2014 transferred to an accountability court on a NAB application stating that the apex court had transferred the investigation of cases from the FIA to NAB and the cases be sent to an accountability court.

The name of the then federal minister for commerce and senior PPP leader, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, was removed from the case at a previous hearing following his death.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2016