ISLAMABAD: The three retired generals involved in the railway land allotment case presented themselves to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) here on Thursday to record their statements, DawnNews reported.

Earlier, the NAB had issued summons on Wednesday to Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi, Lt-Gen (retd) Saeeduz Zafar and Maj-Gen (retd) Hassan Butt to record their statements in a case related to alleged fraudulent allotment of 141 kanals of Pakistan Railways land to a golf club in Lahore, reportedly causing a loss of over Rs10 billion to the national exchequer.

The three former generals had allegedly allotted railways property to the management of the Royal Palm Golf Course.

NAB spokesman Zafar Iqbal had earlier told Dawn that a new agreement had been signed in September this year between Pakistan Railways and the club’s management on the directives of NAB under which an additional amount of Rs16 billion was being paid to the PR.

However, the NA’s Public Accounts Committee had called for the agreement’s cancellation, calling for a fresh bidding for the land and disciplinary action against former Railways bosses who had endorsed the agreement.

A report issued by the NA’s Special Committee on Railways on the allotment of land for setting up Royal Palm Golf and Country Club in Lahore reveals a number of financial and administrative irregularities and recommends prosecution of all members of PR’s executive committee.

On the committee’s directives, the Federal Investigation Agency started the investigation, but later the case was referred to NAB. NAB also sought all the records of the Pakistan Railways from the FIA when it took over the case.

The special committee’s report said the land had been allotted at a nominal price, causing a huge loss to the exchequer because the land utilisation charge was reduced from Rs52.43 per square yard to only Rs4.

The report said construction of a hotel was not mentioned in the terms of reference (TOR) completed on April 20, 2001.

“There was no mention of construction of a hotel in TOR evaluation form filled between April 17 and April 20, 2001, and on the basis of this evaluation the land was awarded to the lessee as the executive committee’s approval was given on the same date,” the report said.

On a suo motu notice, the Supreme Court completed hearing on the case in March last year, but it has yet to issue a judgment.