ASH employee sentenced to two years in prison for bribery

An anti-corruption court on Saturday sentenced an employee of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital to a total of two years’ imprisonment in a five-year-old bribery case.

Zulfiqar Ali, an ECG technician at the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation-run health facility, was found guilty of taking gratification other than legal remuneration.

Anti-Corruption (Provincial) Special Judge Muhammad Aminullah Siddiqui announced his order after recording evidence and final arguments from both defence and prosecution sides.

Noting that the accused faced “agony of trial since 2019”, the judge awarded one-year imprisonment to him for offence punishable under Section 161 (public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration in respect to an official act) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

He was awarded one-year imprisonment for offence of criminal misconduct as punishable under Section 5(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act 1947.

The judge ordered the convict to pay a fine of Rs20,000 or undergo additional six months’ imprisonment over default.

The accused, who turned up on bail, was subsequently taken into custody and remanded to the central prison to serve out the sentence.

According to prosecutor Sharafuddin Kanhar, complainant Nazeer Ahmed submitted an application to the Anti-Corruption Establishment, stating that Zulfiqar, an employee of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, offered him government jobs of junior clerks in KDA office for his son Munir, nephew Shiraz and cousin Akram and demanded Rs150,000 for each. He paid a total of Rs450,000 to the accused in the presence of witnesses.

The accused showed him a list of employees, which was said to have been issued by the then KDA secretary and which also included the names of the three persons. They were later issued appointment letters and got their salary accounts opened in a private bank. The accused then disappeared and after some time he met the complainant and demanded Rs10,000 per person for further process.

The complainant alleged that Zulfiqar, in connivance with then then KDA secretary cheated him by misusing their official status.

An FIR was lodged on the basis of the complaint, the prosecutor said and added that the ACE set up a trap for the accused and conducted a raid under the supervision of a judicial magistrate, catching him red-handed while receiving Rs30,000.

Sharafuddin argued that the accused being a government servant was caught in the act of receiving a bribe. All prosecution witnesses, including the magistrate, fully supported the prosecution case, he said, pleading with the judge to punish him as per the law.

In a supplementary charge sheet, the investigation officer had placed the names of former KDA secretary Toufeeq Ahmed Soomro and Syed Adnan Raza Abidi in column-II with blue ink, requesting the court to discharge them from the case for lack of evidence. However, Zulfiqar went on to stand trial.

On the other hand, defence counsel Naheed Qamar contended that accused Zulfiqar was innocent and had been falsely implicated in the case. She said Adnan Raza received the money from the complainant and that he also gave him job letters. She said the prosecution had not had the signature of Soomro examined by a forensic lab.